Modern barbarism in America

The presence of Trump at the helm of America’s political and executive equations has given rise to noteworthy events in the country. One of the issues emphasized by the new U.S. president is the deportation of immigrants.

During the November 2024 presidential election campaign, Trump repeatedly stated his famous phrase: “I want to carry out the largest deportation of immigrants in the history of the United States.”

Now, alarming news has emerged concerning the minimal rights of immigrants in America. For the first time, a federal judge in Pennsylvania has allowed the U.S. government to use the “Alien Enemies Act,” enacted in the 18th century, to deport immigrants.

Until now, reliance on this law had been rejected by several courts. In other words, from the perspective of some official and legal circles in America, immigrants who, for any reason, are present in the United States, have migrated there, and have even provided services to the country, are now identified by security and social institutions as actual enemies or, at best, potential enemies!

Stephanie Haines, a federal judge appointed by Donald Trump, ruled in Pennsylvania that the U.S. government can deport immigrants suspected of being members of enemy groups based on the law passed in 1798. The key question is: who interprets such a law?! In other words, if refugees and immigrants are easily labeled as undesirable or accused of collaborating with America’s enemies, and subsequently face imprisonment and deportation, who will be held accountable?! The answer is clear: no one!

More importantly, this law is one of the wartime statutes that allows the president to deport nationals of a specific country during times of war or conflict with that country. As is evident, the United States is not currently in a state of civil war or direct conflict with other countries to justify imposing such a framework on immigrants!

According to reports from The Washington Post and Politico, this is the first time a U.S. court has permitted this law to be used as a legal basis for deporting immigrants. Previously, several other courts had rejected such applications of the law. In the recent case, the Trump administration argued that certain drug cartels (of non-American origin) have waged a form of “irregular warfare” against the U.S., and therefore, their members can be classified as “enemy combatants.”

Undoubtedly, combating drug cartels is not reprehensible. However, when laws related to fighting drug cartels become a pretext for targeting undocumented immigrants (based on allegations that are neither provable nor disprovable), the situation takes a different turn!