Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) called for Congress to reform the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, a legislation that President Donald Trump has cited as the foundation for his imprisonment plan.
Flanked by a handful of feminine Democratic lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Wednesday evening, Omar said Trump and White House senior director Stephen Miller planned to bend the rules to blow up newcomers en masse.
“The environment in which Trump and Miller are raising the Alien Enemies Act is in what they say are their strategies to target cartels and transnational criminal groups, but it is not what the Alien Enemies Act does, ” said Omar. “The Alien Enemies Act targets individuals based on their ethnicity, not based on their actions. … It does not allow them to pin the Sinaloa Cartel. It allows them to target all Mexican. ”
Omar’s alternative was the Companions No Enemies Act she introduced Wednesday.
Trump declared during his opening address Monday evening that he would identify the Alien Enemies Act in order to go after legal organizations.
“By invoking the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, I will lead our state to use the full and tremendous power of federal and state law enforcement to eradicate the presence of all international groups and criminal systems bringing destructive violence to U. S. soil, including our cities and inner cities, ” Trump said Monday.
After taking office, Trump signed an executive order, Designating Cartels and Another Organizations as Foreign Terrorist Organizations and Specially Designated Global Terrorists, which cited the existence of an “invasion or predatory incursion against the territory of the United States by a eligibility artist, and to make such facilities as required to expedite the removal of those who may become designated under this purchase. ”
Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-IL ) said it was up to lawmakers to change the law before the Trump administration could use it to carry out its action.
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“We have the power and the obligation to change the laws that allows this administration to treat the people we love as our enemies, ” Ramirez said.
Omar and Ramirez were joined by Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-HI), Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA ), and Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL ).
