Editing Alien and Sedition Acts

{{Short description|Set of 1798 laws in the United States}}
{{use mdy dates |date=July 2022}}

The '''Alien and Sedition Acts''' of 1798 were a set of four [[United States]] statutes that sought, on national security grounds, to restrict immigration and limit [[First Amendment to the United States Constitution|1st Amendment]] protections for freedom of speech. They were endorsed by the [[Federalist Party]] of [[John Adams|President John Adams]] as a response to a developing dispute with the [[French First Republic|French Republic]] and to related fears of domestic political subversion. The prosecution of journalists under the Sedition Act rallied public support for the opposition [[Democratic-Republican Party|Democratic-Republicans]], and contributed to their success in the [[1800 United States elections|elections of 1800]]. Under the new [[Presidency of Thomas Jefferson|administration of Thomas Jefferson]], only the Alien Enemies Act,{{efn|
An "[[alien (law)|alien]]" in this sense, is a person who is not a [[national of the United States]].}} granting the president powers of detention and deportation of foreigners in wartime or in face of a threatened invasion, remained in force.
{| class="wikitable plainrowheaders"
|-
! scope="col" | Act
! scope="col" | Purpose
! scope="col" | Status
|-
! scope="row" | [[Naturalization Act of 1798]]
| To increase the requirements to seek [[Citizenship of the United States|citizenship]].
| Repealed in 1802.
|-
! scope="row" | Alien Friends Act of 1798
| To allow the president to imprison and deport non-citizens.
| Expired in 1800.
|-
! scope="row" | Alien Enemies Act of 1798
| To give the president additional powers to detain non-citizens during times of war, invasion, or predatory incursion.<ref>{{cite web
   | title         = 50 USC Ch. 3: Alien Enemies
   | url           = https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title50/chapter3&edition=prelim
   | publisher     = [[United States Code]] 
   | date          = 
   | access-date   = 2025-03-25 
   | archive-date  = 2025-03-22
   | archive-url   = https://web.archive.org/web/20250322212342/https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?path=/prelim@title50/chapter3&edition=prelim
   | url-status    = live 
}}</ref>
| This law, amended in 1918 to strike out the provision restricting the section to males,<ref>{{cite web
   | title         = Title 50 - War and National Defense Chapter 3 - Alien Enemies
   | url           = https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2019-title50/html/USCODE-2019-title50-chap3.htm
   | publisher     = [[GovInfo]] 
   | date          = 
   | access-date   = 2025-03-25 
   |   archive-date  = 2024-11-11
   | archive-url   = https://web.archive.org/web/20241111183729/https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2019-title50/html/USCODE-2019-title50-chap3.htm
   | url-status    = live 
}}</ref> is still in effect as {{Usc-title-chap|50|3}}.
|-
! scope="row" | Sedition Act of 1798
| To criminalize false and/or malicious statements about the federal government.
| Expired in 1800.
|}

[[File:Alien and Sedition Acts (1798).png|thumb|Alien Friends Act of 1798]]After 1800, and up until the [[second presidency of Donald Trump]], the surviving Alien Enemies Act was invoked three times, in each case during the course of a declared war: the [[War of 1812]], and the [[World War I|First]] and [[World War II|Second World Wars]]. The law was best known for the contributing role it played during the Second World War in the disproportionate [[internment of Japanese Americans]].

In March 2025, [[Donald Trump]] cited the Alien Enemies Act as his authority for expediting the deportation of non-citizens engaged in what he characterized as an organized criminal-gang "invasion" of the United States. His removal under the Act of [[March 2025 Venezuelan deportations|suspected Venezuelan gang members]] to [[El Salvador]] (where they are subject to indefinite detention) is being litigated in the courts.

==History==
{{further|Early American publishers and printers}}

After the [[American Revolutionary War]] concluded, France was unable to provide further loans; Congress could no longer pay its soldiers.<ref name="q5EIL">{{cite book |author=Rappleye, Charles |url=https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/robert-morris-charles-rappleye/1100160914 |title=Robert Morris : financier of the American Revolution |publisher=New York : Simon & Schuster |year=2010 |isbn=978-1-4165-7091-2 |edition=1st Simon & Schuster hardcover [ed.] |pages=300–313 |contribution=Georgetown University Law Library |lccn=2010020461 |oclc=2010020461 |archive-url=https://archive.org/details/robertm_rap_2010_00_1148/page/n7/mode/2up |archive-date=2017-02-24}}</ref> In 1793, [[United States Congress|Congress]] unilaterally suspended repayment of French loans from the war, and in 1794 signed the [[Jay Treaty]] with [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]]. France, engaged in the 1792 to 1797 [[War of the First Coalition]], retaliated by having French [[privateer]]s seize U.S. ships on both the Eastern Seaboard and the Caribbean.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Quasi-War with France (1798 - 1801) |url=https://ussconstitutionmuseum.org/major-events/the-quasi-war-with-france/ |access-date=2025-04-08 |website=USS Constitution Museum |language=en}}</ref>

President [[John Adams]] sent envoys to Paris but was purportedly confronted with a demand by French foreign minister [[Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord|Talleyrand]] for a bribe as a condition for opening formal negotiations. The publication of in the ''[[Philadelphia Aurora]]'' of Talleyrand's account of what became known as the [[XYZ Affair]] initiated the first attempted prosecution under the Sedition Act.<ref name=":3" /> Charged with seditious libel against Adams and his Federalist administration, the Aurora's publisher [[Benjamin Franklin Bache]] died in advance of his trial.<ref name=":12">{{Cite journal |last=Clark |first=Allan C. |date=1906 |title=William Duane |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40066936 |journal=Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C. |volume=9 |pages=14–62, 22 |issn=0897-9049 |jstor=40066936}}</ref>

The unresolved dispute with France evolved into the [[Quasi-War|Quasi-War (1798 to 1800)]]  fought almost entirely at sea, primarily in the [[Caribbean]] and off the [[East Coast of the United States]]. Believing that French military successes in Europe had been assisted by the broader appeal of [[French Revolution|French revolutionary]] ideals, the Adams administration proposed the Alien and Sedition acts as counter to what they presumed would be a French strategy of domestic subversion.<ref name=":0">
{{cite web |year=2003 |title=The Alien and Sedition Acts: Defining American Freedom |url=http://www.crf-usa.org/america-responds-to-terrorism/the-alien-and-sedition-acts.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160821181226/http://crf-usa.org/america-responds-to-terrorism/the-alien-and-sedition-acts.html |archive-date=August 21, 2016 |access-date=14 October 2015 |website=Constitutional Rights Foundation}}
</ref>

Protests occurred across the country,<ref>
{{cite book |last=Halperin |first=Terri Diane |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dX3_CwAAQBAJ&pg=PT104 |title=The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 |publisher=JHU Press |year=2016 |isbn=978-1421419701}}
</ref> with critics denouncing the Acts as an encroachment of the federal executive upon the powers of Congress and the judiciary, and a violation of the First Amendment the right to free speech, primarily intended to suppress the Democratic-Republican opposition<ref>{{cite book |last=Watkins |first=William J. Jr. |title=Reclaiming the American Revolution |date=2008 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan US |isbn=978-0-230-60257-1 |page=28}}</ref>{{Sfn|Martin|2010|p=81}} As campaign material for his [[1800 United States presidential election|1800 United States presidential bid]], [[Vice President of the United States|Vice President]] [[Thomas Jefferson]], secretly authored a [[Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions|Kentucky resolution]], seconded by [[James Madison]] in the Virginia legislature, asserting the right of the states to nullify the Acts as unconstitutional.<ref name="Chernow, Ron 2004. p587">Chernow, Ron. "Alexander Hamilton". 2004. p587. Penguin Press.</ref> Unless repealed, Jefferson suggested the legislation might drive states "into revolution and blood".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Chernow |first=Ron |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4z5eL5SGjEoC&dq=%22unless+arrested+at+the+threshold%22%2C+the+Alien+and+Sedition+Acts+would+%22necessarily+drive+these+states+into+revolution+and+blood%22&pg=PA573 |title=Alexander Hamilton |date=2005-03-29 |publisher=Penguin |isbn=978-1-101-20085-8 |pages=573 |language=en}}</ref>

Alarmed, the Federalists accused the Democratic-Republicans of shielding the subversive activities of French and French-sympathizing immigrants.<ref name="Knott p48">
{{cite book |last=Knott |first=Stephen F. |title=Alexander Hamilton and the Persistence of Myth |publisher=[[University Press of Kansas]] |year=2005 |isbn=978-0-7006-1419-6 |location=Lawrence, Kansas |page=48}}
</ref> The Federalist pamphleteer [[William Cobbett]] accused Bache's successor at the ''Aurora'', [[William Duane (journalist)|William Duane]], of orchestrating a conspiracy among [[Society of United Irishmen|United Irish]] émigrés. Convening in Philadelphia's African Free School, and admitting, together with "all those who have suffered in the cause of freedom", [[Free Negro|free blacks]], the Irish republicans had formed a society dedicated to the proposition (to which each member attested) that "a free form of government, and uncontrouled [sic] opinion on all subjects, [are] the common rights of all the human species".<ref name=":322">{{Cite journal |last=McAleer |first=Margaret H. |date=2003 |title=In Defense of Civil Society: Irish Radicals in Philadelphia during the 1790s |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/23546484 |journal=Early American Studies |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=(176–197) 187–188 |issn=1543-4273 |jstor=23546484}}</ref> Against the backdrop of the [[Quasi-War|Quasi War]] and of the [[Haitian Revolution]] (then still under the flag of the [[French First Republic|French Republic]]),<ref name=":82">{{Cite thesis |last=MacGiollabhui |first=Muiris |title=Sons of Exile: The United Irishmen in Transnational Perspective 1791-1827 |publisher=UC Santa Cruz (Thesis) |url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/75x28210 |pages=94–95, 198 |year=2019}}</ref>  for Cobbett, this was sufficient proof of an intention to organise slave revolts and "thus involve the whole country in rebellion and bloodshed".<ref name=":322" /> In protesting the Acts, Duane had argued, in letter to [[George Washington]], for an entirely civic concept of American citizenship, one that might encompass "the Jew, the savage, the Mahometan, the idolator, upon all of whom the sun shines equally".<ref name=":53">Duane, William (1797), ''Letter to George Washington President of the United States'', Baltimore: Printed for George Keating's Bookstore. Cited MacGiollabhui (2019), p.113.</ref>

With President [[John Adams]] naming Duane as one of the three or four men most responsible for his defeat,<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Phillips |first=Kim T. |date=1977 |title=William Duane, Philadelphia's Democratic Republicans, and the Origins of Modern Politics |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/20091178 |journal=The Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography |volume=101 |issue=3 |pages=(365–387) 368 |issn=0031-4587 |jstor=20091178}}</ref> Jefferson's Democratic-Republicans ticket triumphed in the elections of 1800. Upon assuming the presidency, Jefferson pardoned those still serving sentences under the Sedition Act,<ref name="Weisberger">
{{cite book |last=Weisberger |first=Bernard A. |title=America Afire: Jefferson, Adams, and the Revolutionary Election of 1800 |publisher=[[William Morrow and Company|William Morrow]] |year=2000 |isbn=978-0380977635 |location=New York City |pages=187–193, 201}}
</ref> and the new Congress repaid their fines.<ref name="Cornell-3760-US-253-276">{{cite report |url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0376_0254_ZO.html |title=Full Supreme Court opinion |year=1964 |publisher=[[Cornell University]] |id=376 U.S. 254, 276 |access-date=June 27, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131020020350/http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/historics/USSC_CR_0376_0254_ZO.html |archive-date=October 20, 2013 |url-status=live |series=[[New York Times Co. v. Sullivan]] |department=Law School}}</ref>

Of the four original acts, by 1802 only the Alien Enemies Act remained.

== The Acts ==

=== Alien Friends Act ===
{{Infobox U.S. legislation
| shorttitle = Alien Friends Act
| longtitle = An Act concerning Aliens
| nickname = 
| enacted by = 5th
| announced in = <!--like "enacted by" but for proposed/unpassed legislation-->
| effective date = 
| cite public law = {{USPL|5|58}}
| cite statutes at large = {{USStat|1|570}}
| acts amended = 
| acts repealed = 
| title amended = <!--US code titles changed-->
| sections created = 
| sections amended = 
| leghisturl = 
| introducedin = 
| introducedbill = 
| introducedby = 
| introduceddate = 
| committees = 
| passedbody1 = 
| signedpresident = John Adams
| signeddate = June 25, 1798
| amendments = 
| SCOTUS cases = 
| statsvol = 1
| passeddate1 = 
| passedvote1 = 
| passedbody2 =
| passeddate2 = 
| passedvote2 = 
}}
The Alien Friends Act (officially "An Act Concerning Aliens") authorized the president to arbitrarily deport any non-citizen that was determined to be "dangerous to the peace and safety of the United States."<ref>
{{cite web
 |title=An Act Concerning Aliens
 |date=25 June 1798
 |id=Sess II, Chap. 58; 5th Congress
 |website=memory.loc.gov
 |publisher=[[U.S. Library of Congress]]
 |url=https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=693
}}
</ref> Once a non-citizen was determined to be dangerous, or was suspected of conspiring against the government, the president had the power to set a reasonable amount of time for departure, and remaining after the time limit could result to up to three years in prison. The law was never directly enforced, but it was often used in conjunction with the Sedition Act to suppress criticism of the Adams administration. Upon enactment, the Alien Friends Act was authorized for two years, and it was [[Sunset provision|allowed to expire at the end of this period]]. Democratic-Republicans opposed the law, with [[Thomas Jefferson]] referring to it as "a most detestable thing... worthy of the 8th or 9th century."{{r|Wood2011|p=249}}

While the law was not directly enforced, it resulted in the voluntary departure of foreigners who feared that they would be charged under the act. The Adams administration encouraged these departures, and Secretary of State [[Timothy Pickering]] would ensure that the ships were granted passage. Though Adams did not delegate the final decision-making power, Secretary Pickering was responsible for overseeing enforcement of the Alien Friends Act. Both Adams and Pickering considered the law too weak to be effective; Pickering expressed his desire for the law to require [[sureties]] and authorize detainment prior to deportation.<ref name=":1">
{{Cite journal 
|last=Smith 
|first=James Morton 
|date=1954 
|title=The Enforcement of the Alien Friends Act of 1798 
|journal=The Mississippi Valley Historical Review 
|volume=41 
|issue=1 
|pages=85–104 
|doi=10.2307/1898151 
|jstor=1898151 
|issn=0161-391X}}
</ref>

Many French nationals were considered for deportation but were allowed to leave willingly, or Adams declined to take action against them. These figures included: philosopher [[Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney]], General [[Victor Collot]], scholar [[Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-Méry]], diplomat [[Victor Marie du Pont]]. Secretary Pickering also proposed applying the act against the French diplomatic delegation to the United States, but Adams refused. Journalist [[John Daly Burk]] agreed to leave under the act informally to avoid being tried for sedition, but he went into hiding in Virginia until the act's expiration.<ref name=":1" /> Adams never signed a deportation order.{{r|miller|page1=187–193}}

=== Alien Enemies Act ===
{{Infobox U.S. legislation
| shorttitle = Alien Enemies Act
| longtitle = An Act respecting Alien Enemies
| nickname = 
| enacted by = 5th
| announced in = <!--like "enacted by" but for proposed/unpassed legislation-->
| effective date = 
| cite public law = 
| cite statutes at large = {{USStat|1|577}}
| acts amended = 
| acts repealed = 
| title amended = <!--US code titles changed-->
| sections created = {{Usctc|50|3}}
| sections amended = 
| leghisturl = 
| introducedin = 
| introducedbill = 
| introducedby = 
| introduceddate = 
| committees = 
| passedbody1 = 
| signedpresident = John Adams
| signeddate = July 6, 1798
| amendments = 
| SCOTUS cases = 
| statsvol = 1
| passeddate1 = 
| passedvote1 = 
| passedbody2 = 
| passeddate2 = 
| passedvote2 = 
}}

The Alien Enemies Act (officially "An Act Respecting Alien Enemies") was passed to supplement the Alien Friends Act, granting the government additional powers to regulate non-citizens that would take effect in times of war.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{cite web
 |title=An Act respecting Alien Enemies
 |date=25 June 1798
 |id=Sess II, Chap. 58; 1 Stat. 577 5th Congress; ch. 66
 |website=library.uwb.edu
 |url=http://library.uwb.edu/static/USimmigration/1%20stat%20577.pdf
 |access-date=9 December 2016
 |archive-date=20 December 2016
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161220094337/http://library.uwb.edu/static/USimmigration/1%20stat%20577.pdf
 }}</ref> Under this law, the president could authorize the arrest, relocation, or deportation of any male over the age of 14 who hailed from a foreign enemy country.<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Alien and Seditions Act {{!}} American Experience {{!}} PBS |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/adams-alien-and-seditions-act/ |access-date=2023-12-13 |website=www.pbs.org |language=en |archive-date=July 13, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220713184325/https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/adams-alien-and-seditions-act/ |url-status=live }}</ref> It also provided some legal protections for those subject to the law.{{Sfn|Martin|2010|p=80}} Unlike the other acts, this act was largely unopposed by the Democratic-Republicans.{{r|Wood2011|page=249}}

The Alien Enemies Act was not allowed to expire with the other Alien and Sedition Acts, and it remains in effect as Chapter 3, Sections 21–24 of [[Title 50 of the United States Code|Title 50]] of the [[United States Code]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Alien Enemies |url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/chapter-3 |access-date=October 17, 2013 |publisher=Cornell University |department=Law School |archive-date=October 19, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131019002119/http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/chapter-3 |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== Naturalization Act ===
{{Main|Naturalization Act of 1798}}
The Naturalization Act increased the residency requirement for American citizenship from five to 14 years and increased the notice time from three to five years. Although the law was passed under the guise of protecting national security, most historians conclude it was really intended to decrease the number of citizens, and thus voters, who disagreed with the Federalist Party.<ref name="Watkins">{{cite book |last=Watkins |first=William J. Jr. |title=Reclaiming the American Revolution |publisher=[[Palgrave Macmillan]] |location=New York City |date=2008 |isbn=978-0-230-60257-1 |page=28}}</ref> At the time, the majority of immigrants supported [[Thomas Jefferson]] and the Democratic-Republicans—the political opponents of the Federalists.<ref name=":0" /> It did not have an expiration date, but it was repealed by the [[Naturalization Law of 1802]].

=== Sedition Act ===
{{Infobox U.S. legislation
| shorttitle = Sedition Act
| longtitle = An Act in addition to the act, entitled "An act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States"
| nickname = 
| enacted by = 5th
| announced in = <!--like "enacted by" but for proposed/unpassed legislation-->
| effective date = 
| cite public law = {{USPL|5|74}}
| cite statutes at large = {{USStat|1|596}}
| acts amended = 
| acts repealed = 
| title amended = <!--US code titles changed-->
| sections created = 
| sections amended = 
| leghisturl = 
| introducedin = 
| introducedbill = 
| introducedby = 
| introduceddate = 
| committees = 
| passedbody1 = 
| signedpresident = John Adams
| signeddate = July 14, 1798
| amendments = 
| SCOTUS cases = 
| statsvol = 1
| passeddate1 = 
| passedvote1 = 
| passedbody2 =
| passeddate2 = 
| passedvote2 = 
}}
The Federalist-controlled Congress passed the Sedition Act<ref>{{cite web |date=14 July 1798 |title=An Act in addition to the act, entitled, "An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States" |url=https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=719 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190719162526/https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum=719 |archive-date=July 19, 2019 |access-date=September 16, 2019 |website=memory.loc.gov |publisher=[[U.S. Library of Congress]] |id=Sess II, Chap. 74; 5th Congress}}</ref> by a vote of 44 to 41.<ref>{{cite web |title=The Sedition Act, 1798 {{!}} Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History |url=https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/sedition-act-1798 |website=www.gilderlehrman.org |access-date=25 October 2023 |archive-date=November 12, 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231112201847/https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/spotlight-primary-source/sedition-act-1798 |url-status=live }}</ref> The legislation made it illegal to print “false, scandalous and malicious writing or writings against the government of the United States, or either house of the Congress of the United States, or the President of the United States.”<ref name=":3">{{Cite web |last=Andonian |first=Raffi |title=The Adamant Patriot: Benjamin Franklin Bache as Leader of the Opposition Press {{!}} Penn State University Libraries |url=https://libraries.psu.edu/about/collections/unearthing-past-student-research-pennsylvania-history/adamant-patriot-benjamin#:~:text=One%20month%20later,%20in%20June,this%20point%20in%20June,%20it |access-date=2025-04-13 |website=libraries.psu.edu |language=en}}</ref>

The act was used to suppress speech critical of the Adams administration, including the prosecution and conviction of many [[Early American publishers and printers#Newspapers and the Alien and Sedition Acts|Jeffersonian newspaper owners]] who disagreed with the Federalist Party.<ref name="acons">{{cite book |last1=Gillman |first1=Howard |title=American Constitutionalism |last2=Graber |first2=Mark A. |last3=Whittington |first3=Keith E. |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-19-975135-8 |location=New York City |page=174 |author3-link=Keith Whittington}}</ref>
The Sedition Act did not extend enforcement to speech about the Vice President, as then-incumbent Thomas Jefferson was a political opponent of the Federalist-controlled Congress. The Sedition Act was allowed to expire in 1800, and its enactment is credited with helping Jefferson win the presidential election that year.<ref name=":2">{{Cite journal |last=Lendler |first=Marc |date=2004 |title='Equally Proper at All Times and at All Times Necessary': Civility, Bad Tendency, and the Sedition Act |journal=Journal of the Early Republic |publisher=[[University of North Carolina Press]] |location=Chapel Hill, North Carolina |volume=24 |issue=3 |pages=419–444 |jstor=4141440 |issn=0275-1275}}</ref>{{Sfn|Martin|2010|p=81}}

Prominent prosecutions under the Sedition Act included:
* [[Benjamin Franklin Bache]], editor of the ''[[Philadelphia Aurora]]'', a Democratic-Republican newspaper, was the first to be arrested under the Sedition Act. In 1798, he was charged with libelling President Adams ("the blind, bald, crippled, toothless, querulous Adams") whom he had accused of nepotism and monarchical ambition<ref>{{Cite web |last=Gruberg |first=Matin |date=2009 |title=Benjamin Franklin Bache |url=https://firstamendment.mtsu.edu/article/benjamin-franklin-bache/ |access-date=2025-04-23 |website=The Free Speech Center |language=en-US}}</ref> and against whom he had supported the French position in the [[XYZ Affair|XYZ affair]].<ref name=":12" /> Released on bail, he died of [[yellow fever]] before trial.{{r|miller|page1=27–29, 65, 96}}
* In 1799, [[William Duane (journalist)|William Duane]], Bache successor at the ''Aurora,'' twice faced charges under the Sedition Act: for his purported instigation of a "United Irish riot" in Philadelphia,<ref name=":822">{{Cite thesis |last=MacGiollabhui |first=Muiris |title=Sons of Exile: The United Irishmen in Transnational Perspective 1791-1827 |publisher=UC Santa Cruz (Thesis) |url=https://escholarship.org/uc/item/75x28210 |pages=94–95, 198 |year=2019}}</ref>{{rp|107–111}} and for an editorial that intimated that [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]] had used intrigue to exert its influence with the Adams administration. In both instances, the prosecution case collapsed.<ref>Smith, James Morton (1956), ''Freedom's Fetters'', Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, p. 287.</ref> 
* [[Matthew Lyon]], a Democratic-Republican congressman from [[Vermont]], was the first individual to contest charges under the Alien and Sedition Acts in court.<ref name=":0" /> He was indicted in 1800 for an essay he had written in the ''Vermont Journal,'' where he had accused the administration of "ridiculous pomp, foolish adulation, and selfish avarice." While awaiting trial, Lyon commenced publication of ''Lyon's Republican Magazine'', subtitled "The Scourge of Aristocracy." At trial, he was fined $1,000, and sentenced to four months in jail. After his release, he returned to Congress.<ref>{{cite book |last=Foner |first=Eric |title=Give Me Liberty! |publisher=W.W. Norton and Company |year=2008 |isbn=978-0-393-93257-7 |pages=282–283}}</ref>{{r|miller|page1=102–108}} 
* [[James T. Callender]], a Scottish pamphleteer who had fled to the United States after becoming embroiled in controversy due to publishing an anti-war and anti-corruption tract. Living first in [[Philadelphia]], then seeking refuge close by in [[Virginia]], he wrote a book titled ''The Prospect Before Us'' (read and approved by Vice President Jefferson before publication), in which he called the Adams administration a "continual tempest of malignant passions," and referred to the President as a "repulsive pedant, a gross hypocrite, and an unprincipled oppressor." Callender, already residing in Virginia and writing for the ''[[Richmond Examiner]]'', was indicted in mid-1800 under the Sedition Act, and was subsequently convicted, fined $200, and sentenced to nine months in jail.<ref name="miller">
{{cite book |last=Miller |first=John C. |url=https://archive.org/details/crisisinfreedoma0000mill |title=Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts |publisher=Little Brown and Company |year=1951 |location=New York |url-access=registration}}</ref>{{rp|211–220}} 
* [[Anthony Haswell (printer)|Anthony Haswell]] was an English immigrant, and a printer of the Jeffersonian ''[[Vermont Gazette]]''.<ref>{{cite web |last=Tyler |first=Resch |title=Anthony Haswell |url=http://www.benningtonmuseum.org/anthony-haswell.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160402201213/http://www.benningtonmuseum.org/anthony-haswell.html |archive-date=2 April 2016 |website=Bennington Museum}}</ref> Sourced from the ''Philadelphia Aurora'', Haswell had reprinted Bache's claim that the federal government employed [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|Tories]]. Haswell also published an advertisement from Lyon's sons for a lottery to raise money for his fine that decried Lyon's oppression by jailers exercising "usurped powers".<ref>{{cite book |last=Wharton |first=Francis |url=https://archive.org/details/statetrialsunit00whargoog |title=State Trials of the United States during the administrations of Washington and Adams |publisher=Carey and Hart |year=1849 |location=Philadelphia |pages=[https://archive.org/details/statetrialsunit00whargoog/page/683/mode/2up 684]–685}}</ref> Haswell was found guilty of seditious libel by judge [[William Paterson (judge)|William Paterson]], and sentenced to a two-month imprisonment and a $200 fine.<ref name="Perilous">
{{cite book |last=Stone |first=Geoffrey R. |url=https://archive.org/details/periloustimesfre00ston |title=Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from the Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism |publisher=W. W. Norton & Company |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-393-05880-2 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/periloustimesfre00ston/page/63 63]–64 |url-access=registration}}</ref>
* Luther Baldwin was indicted, convicted, and fined $100 for a drunken incident that occurred during a visit by President Adams to Newark, New Jersey. Upon hearing a gun report during a parade, he yelled "I hope it hit Adams in the [backside]."<ref>
{{citation |last=Smith |first=James Morton |title=Freedom's Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American civil liberties |pages=270–274 |year=1956 |location=Ithaca, NY |publisher=Cornell University Press}}
</ref>{{r|miller|page1=112–14}}
* In November 1798, [[David Brown (Massachusetts protester)|David Brown]] led a group in [[Dedham, Massachusetts]], including [[Benjamin Fairbanks]], in setting up a [[liberty pole]] with the words, "No [[Stamp Act 1765|Stamp Act]], No Sedition Act, No Alien Bills, No Land Tax, downfall to the Tyrants of America; peace and retirement to the President; Long Live the Vice President."<ref name="Perilous" /><ref name="American">
{{cite book |last=Tise |first=Larry E. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T1F1H2KUj80C&pg=PA421 |title=The American Counterrevolution: a Retreat from Liberty, 1783–1800 |publisher=Stackpole Books |year=1998 |isbn=978-0-8117-0100-6 |pages=420–421}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Curtis |first=Michael Kent |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_VOeQqUhTAsC&pg=PA88 |title=Free speech, "the people's darling privilege": Struggles for freedom of expression in American history |publisher=Duke University Press |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-8223-2529-1 |page=88}}</ref> Brown was arrested in Andover, Massachusetts, but because he could not afford the $4,000 bail, he was taken to Salem for trial.<ref name="American" /> Brown was tried in June 1799.<ref name="Perilous" /> Brown pleaded guilty, but Justice [[Samuel Chase]] asked him to name others who had assisted him.<ref name="Perilous" /> Brown refused, was fined $480 ({{Inflation|US|480|1800|r=-2|fmt=eq}}),<ref name="American" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Simon |first=James F. |url=https://archive.org/details/whatkindofnation00simo |title=What Kind of Nation: Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and the Epic Struggle to Create a United States |publisher=Simon and Schuster |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-684-84871-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/whatkindofnation00simo/page/55 55] |url-access=registration}}
</ref> and sentenced to eighteen months in prison, the most severe sentence imposed under the Sedition Act.<ref name="Perilous" /><ref name="American" />
The Sedition Act, which was signed into law by Adams on July 14, 1798, had been passed by Federalist-controlled Congress only after multiple amendments including a provision that it automatically expire in March 1801.<ref name="Weisberger" />

The Alien and Sedition Acts were never appealed to the Supreme Court, whose power of [[judicial review]] was not established until ''[[Marbury v. Madison]]'' in 1803. Subsequent mentions in Supreme Court opinions beginning in the mid-20th century have assumed that the Sedition Act would today be found unconstitutional.<ref name=":2" /><ref>{{Cite web |title=The Alien and Seditions Act {{!}} American Experience |url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/adams-alien-and-seditions-act/ |access-date=2022-07-13 |website=PBS |language=en}}</ref>

==Invocations of the Alien Enemies Act==
Following the resolution of the Quasi War in 1800, and up until the second administration of President Trump in 2025, the Alien Enemies Act was invoked by the United States executive on three occasions.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Blakemore |first=Erin |date=2025-03-27 |title=What is the Alien Enemies Act? Here's how the 1798 law was invoked in the past. |url=https://www.npr.org/2025/03/16/g-s1-54154/alien-enemies-el-salvador-trump |access-date=2025-04-14 |work=National Geographic}}</ref>

=== War of 1812 ===
President [[James Madison]] invoked the act against British nationals during the [[War of 1812]], and ordered them to report to local authorities in order to undertake additional duties.<ref>{{Cite web |title=74292-005-001 – Alien Enemies Documents (War of 1812), 1812–1815 |url=https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/territorial/s499/detail/10761 |access-date=2022-07-15 |website=MS Digital Archives |language=en |archive-date=July 15, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220715075150/https://da.mdah.ms.gov/series/territorial/s499/detail/10761 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Narea |first=Nicole |date=2025-03-18 |title=The ugly history behind the obscure law Trump is using for mass deportations |url=https://www.vox.com/politics/404745/alien-enemies-act-trump-venezuela-history-world-war |access-date=2025-03-22 |website=Vox |language=en-US}}</ref>

=== World War I ===
{{Main|Internment of German Americans#World_War_I}}
President [[Woodrow Wilson]] invoked the act against nationals of the [[Central Powers]] during [[World War I]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Proclamation 1364—Declaring That a State of War Exists Between the United States and Germany {{!}} The American Presidency Project |url=https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-1364-declaring-that-state-war-exists-between-the-united-states-and-germany |access-date=2025-04-08 |website=www.presidency.ucsb.edu}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Supreme Court of the United States |date=2025-04-07 |title=Donald J. Trump, President of the United States, et al. v. J.G.G., et al. |url=https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/24pdf/24a931_2c83.pdf |website=www.supremecourt.gov}}</ref> In 1918, an amendment to the act struck the provision restricting the law to males.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Chapter 3 – Alien Enemies |url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2019-title50/html/USCODE-2019-title50-chap3.htm |access-date=2022-07-15 |website=govinfo.gov |archive-date=July 15, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220715075308/https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/USCODE-2019-title50/html/USCODE-2019-title50-chap3.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

=== World War II ===
{{Main|Internment of Japanese Americans|Internment of German Americans#World War II|Internment of Italian Americans}}

On December 7, 1941, in response to the [[bombing of Pearl Harbor]], President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] used the authority of the revised Alien Enemies Act to make [[presidential proclamation]]s #2525 (Alien Enemies – Japanese), #2526 (Alien Enemies – German), and #2527 (Alien Enemies – Italian), in order to apprehend, restrain, secure, and remove Japanese, German, and Italian non-citizens.<ref name="AEAPP">{{cite web |title=Alien Enemies Act and related World War II presidential proclamations |url=http://gaic.info/history/related-laws/ |website=German American Internee Coalition |access-date=August 16, 2016 |archive-date=April 17, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240417022137/https://gaic.info/history/related-laws/ |url-status=live }}</ref> However, most of the 120,000 persons of Japanese descent incarcerated in U.S. internment camps were U.S. citizens detained solely on the basis of their Japanese ancestry, under the authority of [[Executive Order 9066]] issued by Roosevelt early in 1942. The order was issued on the basis of   wartime and national defense statutes unrelated to the Alien Enemies Act, and while deployed primarily against Japanese Americans did lead to the detention of smaller numbers of U.S. citizens of German and Italian descent.<ref name="trumanlib_WRA_1946">''Semiannual Report of the War Relocation Authority, for the period January 1 to June 30, 1946'', not dated. Papers of [[Dillon S. Myer]]. [https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/report-semiannual-report-war-relocation-authority-period-january-1-june-30?documentid=NA&pagenumber=4 Scanned Image] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250318140250/https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/research-files/report-semiannual-report-war-relocation-authority-period-january-1-june-30?documentid=NA&pagenumber=4|date=18 March 2025}} trumanlibrary.gov. Retrieved March 18, 2025.</ref><ref name="trumanlib_WRA_1946_OLD">''Semiannual Report of the War Relocation Authority, for the period January 1 to June 30, 1946'', not dated. Papers of [[Dillon S. Myer]]. [http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/japanese_internment/documents/index.php?pagenumber=4&documentid=62&documentdate=1946-00-00&collectionid=JI&nav=ok Scanned image at] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180616103305/https://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/japanese_internment/documents/index.php?pagenumber=4&documentid=62&documentdate=1946-00-00&collectionid=JI&nav=ok|date=16 June 2018}} trumanlibrary.org. Retrieved September 18, 2006.</ref><ref name="trumanlib_1948">[https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/online-collections/war-relocation-authority-and-incarceration-of-japanese-americans?section=2 ''The War Relocation Authority & the Incarceration of Japanese-Americans During World War II''], not dated. Timeline. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250318122648/https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/library/online-collections/war-relocation-authority-and-incarceration-of-japanese-americans?section=2|access-date=18 March 2025}} trumanlibrary.gov. Retrieved March 18, 2025.</ref><ref name="trumanlib_1948_OLD">
"The War Relocation Authority and the Incarceration of Japanese Americans During World War II: 1948 Chronology",
[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/japanese_internment/1948.htm Web page]
{{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151105103017/http://www.trumanlibrary.org/whistlestop/study_collections/japanese_internment/1948.htm|date=2015-11-05}} at www.trumanlibrary.org. Retrieved September 11, 2006.</ref>

Hostilities with Germany and Italy ended in May 1945, and President [[Harry S. Truman]] issued presidential proclamation #2655 on July 14. The proclamation gave the [[United States Attorney General|attorney general]] authority regarding enemy aliens within the [[continental United States]], to decide whether they are "dangerous to the public peace and safety of the United States," to order them removed, and to create regulations governing their removal, citing the Alien Enemies Act.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Proclamation 2655 – Removal of Alien Enemies |url=https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-2655-removal-alien-enemies |access-date=2022-07-15 |website=The American Presidency Project |archive-date=July 15, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220715075150/https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-2655-removal-alien-enemies |url-status=live }}</ref> On September 8, 1945, Truman issued presidential proclamation #2662, which authorized the [[United States Secretary of State|secretary of state]] to remove enemy aliens that had been sent to the United States from [[Latin America]]n countries.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Proclamation 2662 – Removal of Alien Enemies |url=https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-2662-removal-alien-enemies |access-date=2022-07-15 |website=The American Presidency Project}}</ref> On April 10, 1946, Truman's proclamation #2685 modified previous proclamations, and set a 30-day deadline for removal.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Proclamation 2685 – Removal of Alien Enemies |url=https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-2685-removal-alien-enemies |access-date=2022-07-15 |website=The American Presidency Project |archive-date=July 15, 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220715075151/https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/proclamation-2685-removal-alien-enemies |url-status=live }}</ref>

In ''Ludecke v. Watkins'' (1948), the Supreme Court interpreted the time of release under the Alien Enemies Act.<ref>{{Cite web |date=1947 |periodical=U.S. Report |title=Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U.S. 160 (1948) |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/usrep335160/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221013222818/https://www.loc.gov/item/usrep335160/ |archive-date=13 October 2022 |access-date=13 October 2022 |via=[[Library of Congress]]}}</ref> German alien [[Kurt Lüdecke|Kurt G. W. Lüdecke]] was detained on December 8, 1941, under Proclamation 2526, and continued to be held after cessation of hostilities.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Smith |first=Arthur L. |date=2003 |title=Kurt Lüdecke: The Man Who Knew Hitler |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/1432749 |journal=German Studies Review |publisher=[[Johns Hopkins University Press]] |location=Baltimore, Maryland |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=597–606 |doi=10.2307/1432749 |jstor=1432749 |issn=0149-7952}}</ref> In 1947, Lüdecke petitioned for a [[writ of habeas corpus]] to order his release, after the attorney general ordered him deported. The court ruled 5–4 to affirm the district court and appellate decisions to deny the writ of habeas corpus. The Court also concluded that the Alien Enemies Act allowed for detainment beyond the time hostilities ceased until an actual treaty was signed with the hostile nation or government or the until the president determines that hostilities have concluded.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U.S. 160 (1948) |url=https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/335/160/ |access-date=2022-07-13 |website=Justia Law |language=en}}</ref>

In 1988, President [[Ronald Reagan]] signed the [[Civil Liberties Act of 1988]], which conceded that the internment of Japanese Americans had been based on "race prejudice, war [[hysteria]], and a failure of political leadership",<ref>{{Cite web |title=50 USC 4202: Statement of the Congress |url=https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title50-section4202&num=0&edition=prelim |access-date=2025-04-12 |website=uscode.house.gov}}</ref> and authorizing compensation for survivors.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2021-08-13 |title=Redress and Reparations for Japanese American Incarceration |url=https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/redress-and-reparations-japanese-american-incarceration#:~:text=The%20Civil%20Liberties%20Act%20of,incarceration%20during%20World%20War%20II. |access-date=2025-04-12 |website=The National WWII Museum {{!}} New Orleans |language=en}}</ref>

=== Non-wartime use against Venezuelans ===
{{Main|J.G.G. v. Trump|March 2025 American deportations of Venezuelans}}

On September 20, 2024, amid [[Venezuelan refugee crisis|increased numbers of Venezuelans asylum seekers seeking refuge in the United States]], then-nominee [[Donald Trump]] announced that if elected president for a second term he would invoke the Alien Enemies Act to expedite the removal of non-citizens and criminal networks operating in the United States.<ref name="cbsnews.com">{{cite web |last1=Montoya-Galvez |first1=Camilo |last2=Watson |first2=Eleanor |last3=D'Agata |first3=Charlie |last4=Gómez |first4=Fin |last5=Sganga |first5=Nicole |date=March 15, 2025 |title=Trump to invoke wartime Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to carry out deportations to Guantanamo |url=https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-alien-enemies-act-1798-deportations-guantanamo/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250314150519/https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-alien-enemies-act-1798-deportations-guantanamo/ |archive-date=March 14, 2025 |accessdate=March 15, 2025 |website=[[CBS News]]}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-09-21 |title=Trump vows to invoke a wartime law to deport suspected foreign gang members and drug dealers |url=https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-alien-enemies-act-travel-ban-deport-drug-dealers-gang-members-rcna108121 |access-date=2024-10-13 |website=[[NBC News]] |language=en}}</ref> On October 27, 2024, he again invoked the Alien Enemies Act during a [[2024 Donald Trump rally at Madison Square Garden|campaign rally]] held at [[Madison Square Garden]], claiming that he would use it to remove illegal immigrants operating within gangs and criminal networks on "day one" of his presidency.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Treisman |first=Rachel |date=October 19, 2024 |title=Trump is promising deportations under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798. What is it? |url=https://www.npr.org/2024/10/19/nx-s1-5156027/alien-enemies-act-1798-trump-immigration |access-date=November 7, 2024 |website=[[NPR]]}}
</ref><ref>{{cite web |last=Levin |first=Bess |date=October 15, 2024 |title=Trump Plans to Use 18th-Century "Alien Enemies Act" for Mass Deportations |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/trump-plans-to-use-18th-century-alien-enemies-act-for-mass-deportations |website=[[Vanity Fair (magazine)|Vanity Fair]]}}
</ref>

Trump repeated his intentions in his [[Second inauguration of Donald Trump|second inaugural address]] on January 20, 2025,<ref>{{Cite web |date=January 20, 2025 |title=The Inaugural Address |url=https://www.whitehouse.gov/remarks/2025/01/the-inaugural-address/ |access-date=March 17, 2025 |publisher=[[The White House]] |language=en-US}}</ref> and on March 14, he signed a presidential proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act against what he termed an invasion being perpetrated or attempted by the Venezuelan criminal gang, [[Tren de Aragua]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=March 14, 2025 |title=Proclamation 10903 of March 14, 2025: Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act Regarding the Invasion of the United States by Tren de Aragua |url=https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/FR-2025-03-20/pdf/2025-04865.pdf |access-date=March 21, 2025 |website=govinfo.gov |publisher=Federal Register, Vol. 90, No. 53}}</ref><ref>{{Cite press release |title=Invocation of the Alien Enemies Act regarding the invasion of the United States by Tren de Aragua |date=March 15, 2025 |publisher=[[The White House]] |url=https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/invocation-of-the-alien-enemies-act-regarding-the-invasion-of-the-united-states-by-tren-de-aragua/ |language=en |access-date=March 15, 2025 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250315202035/https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/invocation-of-the-alien-enemies-act-regarding-the-invasion-of-the-united-states-by-tren-de-aragua/ |archive-date=March 15, 2025}}</ref> The following day he authorized the [[March 2025 Venezuelan deportations|deportation of Venezuelan suspected gang members]] to the [[Terrorism Confinement Center]] (CECOT) in [[El Salvador]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Garrett |first=Luke |date=2025-03-16 |title=U.S. deports hundreds of Venezuelans to El Salvador, despite court order |url=https://www.npr.org/2025/03/16/g-s1-54154/alien-enemies-el-salvador-trump |access-date=2025-03-17 |work=NPR |language=en}}</ref> Trump's [[List of executive orders in the second presidency of Donald Trump|executive order]] was temporarily blocked the same day by Judge [[James Boasberg]] of the [[United States District Court for the District of Columbia|U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia]], following a lawsuit, ''[[J.G.G. v. Trump]]'', seeking to stop the deportations.<ref name="politico.com">{{cite web |last1=Ward |first1=Myah |last2=Cheney |first2=Kyle |last3=Bianco |first3=Ali |last4=Gerstein |first4=Josh |date=March 15, 2025 |title=Federal judge halts deportations after Trump invokes Alien Enemies Act |url=https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/15/trump-deportation-lawsuit-00232121 |accessdate=March 15, 2025 |website=[[Politico]]}}</ref>

On April 7, 2025, the [[Supreme Court of the United States|U.S. Supreme Court]] [[Vacated judgment|vacated]] Judge Boasberg's [[Injunction|temporary restraining order]] and held that the plaintiffs must bring the lawsuit in Texas, where they are being held, not in Washington, D.C. The court also ruled that the government must provide sufficient notice to the plaintiffs and an opportunity to challenge the deportation. The ruling did not address the constitutionality of the deportation.<ref>{{Cite news |title=Supreme Court backs Trump in controversial deportations case |url=https://www.npr.org/2025/04/07/nx-s1-5345601/supreme-court-alien-enemies-act |access-date=2025-04-10 |work=NPR |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Beitsch |first=Rebecca |last2=Schonfeld |first2=Zach |date=April 7, 2025 |title=Supreme Court lifts orders blocking Trump from deporting Venezuelans under Alien Enemies Act |url=https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/5237011-supreme-court-trump-venezuelans-alien-enemies-act/ |access-date=April 9, 2025 |work=[[The Hill (newspaper)|The Hill]]}}</ref>

On April 19, 2025, in a signal that the majority of justices did not trust that the Trump administration was complying with the April 7 ruling, the Supreme Court issued an emergency late-night order in ''[[W.M.M. v. Trump|A.A.R.P. v. Trump]],'' halting the deportation process in the [[United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas|Northern District of Texas]]. According to court filings, the government intended to fly the Venezuelan detainees out of the country within 24 hours.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Stern |first=Mark Joseph |date=2025-04-19 |title=The Supreme Court’s Late-Night Rebuke to Trump Is Extraordinary in More Ways Than One |url=https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/04/supreme-court-blocks-deportations-donald-trump-alito-dissent.html |access-date=2025-04-23 |work=Slate |language=en-US |issn=1091-2339}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Alien Act 1705]] in Great Britain
* [[First Party System]] in the United States, 1794–1824
* [[Seditious Meetings Act 1795]] in Great Britain
* [[History of laws concerning immigration and naturalization in the United States]]
* [[Logan Act]] of 1799
* [[Espionage Act of 1917]]
* [[Sedition Act of 1918]]
* [[Alien Registration Act]] of 1940
* [[Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952]]
* [[Homeland Security Act of 2002]]
* [[Asylum in the United States]]
* [[Deportation in the second presidency of Donald Trump]]

== Notes ==
{{notelist}}

== References ==
{{reflist|refs=
<ref name="Wood2011">{{Cite book |last=Wood |first=Gordon S. |title=Empire of Liberty: A History of the Early Republic, 1789-1815 |title-link=Oxford History of the United States |publisher=Oxford University Press |year=2011 |isbn=978-0-19-983246-0 |editor-last=Kennedy |editor-first=David M. |edition= |series=The Oxford History of the United States |location=New York, NY |language=en |author-link=Gordon S. Wood}}</ref>
}}

== Bibliography ==

* {{Cite book |last=Martin |first=Susan F. |title=A Nation of Immigrants |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2010 |isbn=978-0511777943 |edition=|doi=10.1017/CBO9780511777943|s2cid=7071386 }}

==Further reading==
* Berkin, Carol. ''A Sovereign People: The Crises of the 1790s and the Birth of American Nationalism'' (2017) pp 201–44. {{ISBN?}}
* {{cite journal|last1=Berns|first1=Walter|title=Freedom of the Press and the Alien and Sedition Laws: A Reappraisal|journal=Supreme Court Review|volume=1970|date=1970|pages=109–159|jstor=3108724|doi=10.1086/scr.1970.3108724|s2cid=147242863}}
* [[Wendell Bird|Bird, Wendell]]. ''Criminal Dissent: Prosecutions under the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798''. Harvard University Press, 2020. {{ISBN?}}
*Bird, Wendell. ''Press and Speech Under Assault: The Early Supreme Court Justices, the Sedition Act of 1798, and the Campaign Against Dissent.'' New York: Oxford University Press, 2016. {{ISBN|0190461624}}
* {{cite book|last1=Elkins |first1=Stanley M. |first2=Eric |last2=McKitrick |title=The Age of Federalism|date=1995}} {{ISBN?}}
*Halperin, Terri Diane. ''The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798: Testing the Constitution''. Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016. {{ISBN?}}
* {{cite journal|last=Jenkins |first=David |title=The Sedition Act of 1798 and the Incorporation of Seditious Libel into First Amendment Jurisprudence |journal=The American Journal of Legal History |volume=45 |issue=2 |date=April 2001| pages=154–213|jstor=3185366|doi=10.2307/3185366 }}
* {{cite journal|last=Martin |first=James P. |title=When Repression Is Democratic and Constitutional: The Federalist Theory of Representation and the Sedition Act of 1798 |journal=University of Chicago Law Review |volume=66 |issue=1 |date=Winter 1999 |pages=117–182|jstor=1600387|doi=10.2307/1600387 |url=https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4992&context=uclrev }}
* {{cite book |last=Miller |first=John Chester |title=Crisis in Freedom: The Alien and Sedition Acts |url=https://archive.org/details/crisisinfreedoma0000mill |url-access=registration |location=New York |publisher=Little Brown and Company |date=1951}}
* {{cite book |last=Rehnquist |first=William H. |title=Grand Inquests: The Historic Impeachments of Justice Samuel Chase and President Andrew Johnson |date=1994}}{{ISBN?}} Chase was impeached and acquitted for his conduct of a trial under the Sedition act.
* {{cite book|last=Rosenfeld |first=Richard N. |title=American Aurora: A Democratic-Republican Returns: The Suppressed History of Our Nation's Beginnings and the Heroic Newspaper That Tried to Report It |url=https://archive.org/details/americanaurorade00rose |url-access=registration |location=New York |publisher=St. Martin's Press |date=1997|isbn=978-0312150525 }}
* {{cite book |last=Smith |first=James Morton |title=Freedom's Fetters: The Alien and Sedition Laws and American Civil Liberties |url=https://archive.org/details/freedomsfettersa00smit |url-access=registration |date=1956|publisher=Cornell University Press|location=Ithaca NY}}
* {{cite book|last=Stone |first=Geoffrey R. |title=Perilous Times: Free Speech in Wartime from The Sedition Act of 1798 to the War on Terrorism |url=https://archive.org/details/periloustimesfre00ston |url-access=registration |date=2004|publisher=W.W. Norton & Co. |isbn=978-0393058802 }}
* {{cite book|first=Alan |last=Taylor |chapter=The Alien and Sedition Acts |editor-first=Julian E. |editor-last=Zelizer |title=The American Congress |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/americancongress00juli |chapter-url-access=registration |date=2004 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/americancongress00juli/page/63 63–76]|publisher=Houghton Mifflin |isbn=978-0618179060 }}
* [[Brenda Wineapple|Wineapple, Brenda]], "Our First Authoritarian Crackdown" (review of [[Wendell Bird]], ''Criminal Dissent: Prosecutions under the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798'', Harvard University Press, 2020, 546 pp.), ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', vol. LXVII, no. 11 (2 July 2020), pp.&nbsp;39–40. Wineapple closes: "Jefferson said it all: 'I know not what mortifies me most, that I should fear to write what I think, or my country bear such a state of things.'"
* {{cite journal|last=Wright |first=Barry |title=Migration, Radicalism, and State Security: Legislative Initiatives in the Canada and the United States c. 1794–1804 |journal=Studies in American Political Development |volume=16 |issue=1 |date=April 2002 |pages=48–60|doi=10.1017/S0898588X02000032|doi-broken-date=November 6, 2024 |s2cid=145076899 }}
* Zelizer, Julian E., ed. ''The American Congress: The Building of Democracy'' (Houghton Mifflin. 2004) pp.&nbsp;63–76. {{ISBN?}}

===Primary sources===
* Randolph, J.W. ''[https://archive.org/details/virginiareportt00randgoog The Virginia Report of 1799–1800, Touching the Alien and Sedition Laws]; together with the Virginia Resolutions of December 21, 1798, the Debate and Proceedings thereon in the House of Delegates of Virginia, and several other documents illustrative of the report and resolutions''

==External links==
{{Wikisource|Portal:Alien and Sedition Acts|Alien and Sedition Acts}}
* [[s:Portal:Alien and Sedition Acts|Full Text of Alien and Sedition Acts]]
* [https://www.govinfo.gov/link/statute/1/566?link-type=pdf&.pdf Naturalization Act] as enacted ([https://www.govinfo.gov/link/statute/1/566?link-type=details 1 Stat. 566]) in the [[United States Statutes at Large|US Statutes at Large]]
* [https://www.govinfo.gov/link/statute/1/570?link-type=pdf&.pdf Alien Friends Act] as enacted ([https://www.govinfo.gov/link/statute/1/570?link-type=details 1 Stat. 570]) in the US Statutes at Large
* [https://www.govinfo.gov/link/statute/1/577?link-type=pdf&.pdf Alien Enemies Act] as enacted ([https://www.govinfo.gov/link/statute/1/577?link-type=details 1 Stat. 577]) in the US Statutes at Large
* [https://www.govinfo.gov/link/statute/1/596?link-type=pdf&.pdf Sedition Act] as enacted ([https://www.govinfo.gov/link/statute/1/596?link-type=details 1 Stat. 596]) in the US Statutes at Large
* [https://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/Alien.html Alien and Sedition Acts and Related Resources from the Library of Congress]
* [http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=16&page=transcript#no-1 Alien Friends Act, Alien Enemies Act, Sedition Act, 1798]
* [https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/21 50 U.S. Code § 21 – Restraint, regulation, 1918]
* [https://www.congress.gov/annals-of-congress/page-headings/5th-congress/alien-enemies/23909 Debates in US House of Representatives on Alien Enemies Act, part 1] 
* [https://www.congress.gov/annals-of-congress/page-headings/5th-congress/alien-enemies/24003 Debates in US House of Representatives on Alien Enemies Act, part 2]
* [http://www.foitimes.com/internment/Proc2525.html Presidential Proclamation 2525, Alien Enemies – Japanese, December 07, 1941]
* [http://www.foitimes.com/internment/Proc2526.html Presidential Proclamation 2526, Alien Enemies – German, December 07, 1941]
* [http://www.foitimes.com/internment/Proc2527.html Presidential Proclamation 2527, Alien Enemies – Italians, December 07, 1941]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20151222101732/http://www.gaic.info/ShowPage.php?section=History&page=Proc_2655 Presidential Proclamation 2655 – Removal of Alien Enemies, July 14, 1945]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20151222163101/http://www.gaic.info/ShowPage.php?section=History&page=Proc_2662 Presidential Proclamation 2662 – Removal of Alien Enemies, September 8, 1945]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20151222155625/http://www.gaic.info/ShowPage.php?section=History&page=Proc_2685 Presidential Proclamation 2685 – Removal of Alien Enemies, April 10, 1946]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20160316190543/http://gaic.info/docs/Ludecke%20v.%20Watkins.htm Ludecke v. Watkins, 335 U.S. 160 (1948)]

{{US history}}
{{John Adams}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Alien And Sedition Acts}}
[[Category:Alien and Sedition Acts| ]]
[[Category:1798 in American law]]
[[Category:5th United States Congress]]
[[Category:Internment of Japanese Americans]]
[[Category:Political repression in the United States]]
[[Category:Presidency of John Adams]]
[[Category:Sedition|Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798]]
[[Category:United States federal immigration and nationality legislation]]
[[Category:Second Trump administration controversies]]
[[Category:Deportation from the United States]]