The law, which gives the president sweeping powers over non-citizens, was part of a set of statutes that emerged during the tenuous period following the Revolutionary War.

Lawyers for alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua urged the Supreme Court on Tuesday to leave in place an order by a federal judge in Washington, D.C., that prohibits the federal government from removing them,

In an official apology issued by the U.S. government decades later, the federal government admitted the reason for the camps wasn’t safety, security or even threats of espionage, instead it was racism and political incompetence that created the camps that dotted the American interior.

Harvard Law School professor W. Neil Eggleston — former President Barack Obama’s White House Counsel and a member of President Bill Clinton’s Counsel Office — discussed President Donald Trump’s executive authority to trigger the Alien Enemies Act without following due process at a Tuesday lunch talk.

The court was skeptical of Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to defend the deportations. The act, passed in 1798, gives the president the power to detain and remove people from the United States in times of war.

The Trump administration has asked the Supreme Court to lift a District Court judge's order blocking the use of an obscure 18th century law to summarily expel Venezuelan immigrants. Earlier this month,

Venezuelan men wearing Michael Jordan jerseys and sporting tattoos have been unfairly branded as “alien enemy” gang members worthy of deportation, according to lawyers challenging the Trump administration.