From the streets of several American cities such as Miami, Houston, Chicago or New York to a cell from the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT), also known as the “Megacárcel” of El Salvador.
This is the trip that has made more than 200 Venezuelans, to which the Government of Donald Trump points out, without providing evidence, of being part of the dreaded train of Aragua, one of the most dangerous criminal gangs in Venezuela.
For deportation to the Central American country of migrants, who were in an irregular situation in the United States, the White House has appealed to an almost as old law as the country itself: the Law of Foreign Enemies (Alien enemy act) of 1798.
And in doing so he has overlooked the order of a judge, who decided to paralyze the expulsions, because he considered that this legal instrument could not be applied to this case.
But what does the law say, what different powers gives the authorities and when was the last time it was applied? BBC Mundo will answer these and other questions below.
A gun for war times
The Foreign Enemies Law It is a 227 -year -old standardwhich gives the presidents the authority to order the detention and expulsion of citizens of those countries with whom the US is at war. That is, nations with which it maintains real hostilities.
The law, which was approved by Congress with the support of President John Adams when the US was on the verge of war with France, sought to prevent foreign espionage and sabotage.
“A lot of alarmism was generated on French supporters in the country and on conspiracies to basically put the US on the side of France,” said Steve Vladeck, professor at the Law Center at the University of Georgetown, to the US national public radio (NPR).
Throughout the last two centuries, the law has been applied three times.
The first was in 1812, during the war that the US maintained with the United Kingdom and in which the White House was burned by the British troops.
The second and third time occurred during the first (1914-1919) and World War II (1939-1945) respectively.
During the first global conflict, the US authorities used the law to intern more than 6,000 “enemy foreigners”, many of them Germans, in internment camps, and some remained detained up to two years after the end of the fighting, reported the NRP, tape information obtained from the national archives.
For its part, the US Sheriffs Service registered 480,000 “Enemies” Germans and arrested 6,300 between the declaration of war in April 1917 and the armistice in November 1918.
More recently, during World War II, the text was used to allow the imprisonment of German, Italian citizens, but above all Japanese living in the US.
That was how More than 30,000 people They passed the conflagration dams in internment fields, because Washington considered them potentially dangerous.
To justify its application now, in 2025, President Donald Trump issued a decree this Saturday in which he declared that the Aragua train was “perpetrating, trying and threatening with an invasion or predatory incursion against the US territory”.
And to face this threat, the president ordered that all Venezuelan citizens in the country who are at least 14 years old, who are members of the Aragua train and that “are not naturalized or are permanent legal residents” are “arrested, secured and expelled for being foreign enemies.”
However, The Judge of the District of Columbia, James Boasberg, considered that this statement was insufficient to apply the lawsince this was created thought of a war conflict.
And, therefore, the judicial officer ordered the paralysis of deportations. However, his mandate was ignored.
“The law of 1798 is clear in the sense that an ‘invasion or predatory incursion” must be carried out by a’ foreign nation or government ‘so that it can be invoked, “Dan Tichenor, Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon, told BBC Mundo, a few weeks ago.
No guarantees of any kind
So why does Trump resort to such an old law? And what advantages do you have in doing so?
According to experts consulted by BBC Mundo, the legal instrument allows the government to stop and expel people without having to guarantee due process; that is, without having to offer them the right to defend themselves, to appeal to a higher instance, among others.
“The Alien enemy act It gives to the Trump government a very broad and unrestricted executive branch to stop and expel undocumented immigrants at will, ”Tichenor explained.
“The rule authorizes the presidents to expedite the deportation processleaving non -citizens without the possibility of appealing to the immigration courts, ”added the expert.
By preventing immigrants from being able to exercise their judicial guarantees, times are reduced and faster deportations can be executed already a large scale, as Trump promised throughout his campaign.
Another element is that the Law of Foreign Enemies does not require that there are evidence that a foreigner is a threat, just suspicion is enough. This was warned by Katherine Yon Ebright, from the Brennan Center for Justice.
So far, the US government has not identified deported Venezuelans, nor has it presented evidence that confirms their relationship with the Aragua train or that they had committed crimes in the US.
Last February, when the first two flights with deportees arrived in Venezuela, Interior Minister, Diosdado Cabello, said that “none (of the deportees) had a link with the Aragua train.”
Likewise, the Venezuelan official indicated that of the first 190 deported, only 17 had a criminal record.
Controversy served
Trump’s decision to resort to this instrument has caused controversy.
“A war law has no place to apply in peacetime,” added Yon Ebrigth.
For their part, from the Center for American Progress (CAP) they denounced that the implementation of the legal instrument constitutes “a dangerous abuse of power that seeks to deprive people of their legal rights.”
“Every American, regardless of their political ideology, should be concerned about the fact that the president is resorting to powers that were last invoked to detain thousands of Americans of Japanese origin in rise fields, one of the most shameful moments in US history,” said the non -partisan organization in a statement.
Trump has promised to launch the greatest wave of deportations in the country’s history to return security.
“By invoking the Law of Foreign Enemies of 1798, I will order our Government to use all the power of federal and state forces to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and networks that bring devastating crimes to US land, including our urban cities and centers,” he emphasized.
Since the New York tycoon returned to the White House, last January, the number of indiscriminate raids and arrests has increased.
According to figures from the Immigration and Customs Control (ICE), at least 32,000 migrants have been arrested since the inauguration of President Trump.
However, about 23% of these arrests, about 9,000, correspond to legal migrants, without criminal record, or waiting for processes, hearings and responses to residence and asylum requests. ICE calls these arrests “collateral damage”, reported the Gala France 24 chain.
*With information from Cristina J. Orgaz
Click here To read more BBC News World Stories.
Subscribe here To our new newsletter to receive every Friday a selection of our best content of the week.
You can also follow us in YouTube, Instagram, Tiktok, X, Facebook and in our WhatsApp channel.
And remember that you can receive notifications in our app. Download the latest version and act.