By Staff
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
In an effort to curb what they are calling President Donald Trump’s “unbridled executive power,” Sen. Mazie Hirono and Rep. Ilhan Omar have reintroduced the Neighbors Not Enemies Act, S. 193 and H.R. 630. The legislation would entirely repeal the Alien Enemies Act of 1798.
The Alien Enemies Act is the piece of legislation that the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt used to incarcerate Japanese, German, and Italian nationals residing in the United States the moment the United States entered World War II.

FILE – This March 23, 1942, photo shows the first arrivals at the Japanese evacuee community established in Owens Valley in Manzanar, Calif. The San Diego City Council has rescinded a resolution it passed 80 years ago in support of the incarceration of Japanese Americans in prison camps during World War II. During a meeting Tuesday, Sept. 20, 2022, council members approved a formal apology to Japanese Americans, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. Roughly 120,000 Japanese immigrants and Japanese-Americans were sent to desolate camps that dotted the West because the government claimed they might plot against the U.S. (AP Photo/File)
Roosevelt subsequently issued Executive Order 9066, which allowed the United States to round up and incarcerate more than 125,000 people of Japanese descent living in the United States at the time. Two-thirds of those who suffered mass incarceration were American citizens.
“While this law may have been necessary 227 years ago, we now have extensive national security laws that criminalize acts of espionage and further grant the President expansive surveillance powers to identify potential national security threats,” the Japanese American Citizens League said in a press release supporting the Neighbors Not Enemies Act. “Modern national security laws and enforcement apparatus render the Alien Enemies Act obsolete, overly broad, discriminatory, and ripe for abuse by the Executive Branch.”
On Jan. 20, the day he was inaugurated, Trump issued an executive order in preparation to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, in an effort to expedite mass deportations under the unverified claim that undocumented immigrants are a threat to national security.
Trump’s Inaugural Day move mirrored his 2016 executive order, Executive Order 13769—also known as the “Muslim Ban”—that prohibited individuals from predominantly Muslim nations from entering the United States. This order was also predicated on unverified claims of threats that such individuals allegedly posed.