On April 20, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Act against Venezuelans residing in the U.S.. The bill was created in 1798, making it 227 years old. Since the election, one of Trump’s main focuses has been on immigration, and has been deporting individuals who have entered the U.S. both legally and illegally. While many across the globe have been appalled by the events occurring within the U.S., Trump’s enactment of the Alien Act seemed to shock everyone the most.
The Alien Act by the National Archives states, “These laws raised the residency requirements for citizenship from five to fourteen years, authorized the president to deport ‘aliens,’ and permitted their arrest, imprisonment, and deportation during wartime.” The problem that arises from this is that the U.S. is not at war with Venezuela. Despite this, Trump has sent a plane full of Venezuelans back to Venezuela ignoring the law.
The problem that further complicates the dilemma is that the federal court had overruled Trump’s decision and had withheld the aircraft for 14 days to decide their next move. Despite this, Trump had decided to send the aircrafts to deport the individuals anyway, surprising and angering many.
Stephen Vladeck, a law professor who specializes in federal courts at Georgetown University, stated, “You can not defy the courts. Whether you call it a crisis or not, this is certainly an unprecedented degree of resistance on the part of the executive branch to adverse court rulings.” This is in reference to Trump testing what he can get away with by using the law, raising the concerning question of what else Trump is able to try.
Trump’s decision to ignore federal law has created a commotion–one that has come to recent light. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was a young man who was deported and sent to an El Salvadoran prison known as the Centro de Confinamiento del Terrorismo–a Terrorist confinement center. According to NBC News, his paperwork showed that Garcia was in the U.S. legally. Legal documents were supposed to serve as a protective barrier so he couldn’t be deported, yet this was ignored and overlooked by those admitting him.
Additionally, this has extended to visas being revoked,affecting the younger generation. Young adults in college have been dealing with this problem which was recognized by UC Berkeley’s (UCB) Daily Californian publication “Fourteen of the 21 impacted students are currently enrolled—ten are graduate students while four are undergraduates. The remaining seven are recent graduates currently involved in the Optional Practical Training program, which allows certain F-1 students to receive a 12 or 24-month extension for training post-graduation,” UCB stated.
Across all UC campuses, there have been a total of 50 students with their visas terminated. UCSD has had six cases, with the sixth one occurring at the border of San Diego and Tijuana before they were promptly deported. In total, up to this date, around 300 student visas have been revoked by Trump. The main problem is that the majority of citizens Trump is deporting are here legally, not illegally as he had promised.
Not only does this affect the lives of those deported but also has affected the school system. Colleges aren’t being notified when students are deported or having their visas revoked, alongside any immigration services working upon their campus. This lack of communication is yet another display of the administration’s lack of transparency.
“Campus’s Office of the Chancellor [of UCSD] released a statement on April 7th noting that they have no knowledge of federal immigration enforcement activity on campus,” stated the DailyCal “‘The government has not coordinated with UC leaders on their decisions or provided advance notice to us, but has indicated in government databases that the terminations were due to violations of the terms of the individuals’ visa programs. Donald Trump’s legal evasion not only challenges the credibility of the judicial system but also highlights a path where power and wealth can overrule justice itself.
