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national emergencies act
Why April 20, 2025 Could Alter the Course of American Democracy
April 20 is the deadline Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Agency head Kristi Noem have for submitting a joint report to President Donald Trump with their recommendations for invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 and the National Emergencies Act of 1976.
Apr 18, 2025
For the first time since 2014, and the last time until 2087, Easter Sunday will fall on April 20. The 20th will also mark the last day of Passover, Chinese Language Day, International Cannabis Day, and the 136th anniversary of the birth of Adolf Hitler. There’s a lot going on.
But of all the observances and events that will take place, only one has the potential to alter the course of American democracy. April 20 is the deadline Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Homeland Security Agency head Kristi Noem have for submitting a joint report to President Donald Trump about conditions at the southern border, along with their recommendations for invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807 and the National Emergencies Act of 1976.
Hegseth and Noem were given this task by a presidential proclamation declaring a state of emergency at the border, and an accompanying executive order (EO No. 14159) that Trump issued on Jan. 20. The edicts gave the department leaders 90 days to reach their conclusions. Both are based on the theory that the U.S. faces an invasion of undocumented migrants on its southern flank, and are part of a larger set of 51 executive orders, 12 memorandums, and four proclamations Trump promulgated on the first day of his second term.
If any of this comes to pass, it won’t just be undocumented migrants, foreign students, asylum-seekers, and suspected gang members who end up in the crosshairs.
There are some fine distinctions between EOs, presidential memoranda, and proclamations—principally, that EOs are directed specifically at federal agencies and must be published in the Federal Register while the others need not be—but the order and the emergency proclamation work as a package and must be read in tandem. EO 14159 is entitled “Protecting the American People Against Invasion.” It begins, in the histrionic fashion of the 47th president, blaming former President Joe Biden for the breakdown of our immigration system, declaring:
Over the last 4 years, the prior administration invited, administered, and oversaw an unprecedented flood of illegal immigration into the United States. Millions of illegal aliens crossed our borders or were permitted to fly directly into the United States on commercial flights and allowed to settle in American communities, in violation of longstanding Federal laws.
Many of these aliens unlawfully within the United States present significant threats to national security and public safety, committing vile and heinous acts against innocent Americans. Others are engaged in hostile activities, including espionage, economic espionage, and preparations for terror-related activities. Many have abused the generosity of the American people, and their presence in the United States has cost taxpayers billions of dollars at the federal, state, and local levels.
To combat the invasion, the EO calls for the formation of joint interagency task forces to expand the use of expedited removal (deportations without hearings) of the undocumented, deny federal funding to “sanctuary” jurisdictions, impose criminal and civil penalties on undocumented persons who fail to register with the federal government, and to devise a plan to carry out such measures within 90 days.
The EO does not specifically mention the Insurrection and National Emergency acts, but the proclamation cites both statutes as sources of presidential power. In addition to the 90-day reporting deadline, the proclamation authorizes the Defense Department to complete construction of the border wall, and to deploy the Armed Forces and National Guard to assist Homeland Security to obtain “operational control” of the border.
Although the proclamation and order seem limited on their face to the immediate southern border, legally they apply to a much broader geographical area. Even without the new initiatives, federal law gives U.S. Customs and Border Patrol the power to conduct searches and make arrests within an “expanded border zone” that extends 100 miles from any external international boundary. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, some 200 million people live within the expanded zone, including everyone residing in New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and the entire state of Florida. In the interior of the country as well as in the expanded zone, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wields the power of arrest.
There have been other periods of immigrant scapegoating and persecution in U.S. history, but this is the first time that immigration enforcement has been officially linked by presidential decrees to the Insurrection Act.
Originally adopted in 1792 as the “Calling Forth Act,” the Insurrection Act on the books today authorizes the president to deploy the Army and deputize the National Guard to suppress insurrections, rebellions, instances of civil disorder, and unlawful “combinations or assemblages” that obstruct the authority of the United States or the ability of any state to enforce the law.
The Insurrection Act operates as an exception to the prohibition of the domestic deployment of federal troops, as codified in the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. It has been invoked 30 times. In the 19th century, Abraham Lincoln utilized the act in response to southern secession at the outset of the Civil War; and Ulysses S. Grant used it during Reconstruction to respond to the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. In the 20th century, Woodrow Wilson used the act against striking Colorado coal miners; Herbert Hoover used it against “Bonus Army” protesters in Washington, D.C.; Dwight D. Eisenhower used it to enforce the integration of public schools in Little Rock, Arkansas; and George H.W. Bush used it in response to the 1992 riots in Los Angeles.
Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in 2020 to quell mass demonstrations related to the murder of George Floyd, but reportedly was restrained from doing so by former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley and other “grown-ups” in his first administration. This time around, the grown-ups have left the building. There are no restraints.
Invoking the National Emergencies Act poses additional dangers in Trump’s hands, allowing him to unilaterally activate an estimated 150 statutory powers. These include the authority to waive the minimum comment periods for proposed regulations, seize American citizens’ assets without due process, and, perhaps most alarming of all, shut down or take over private communications systems.
If any of this comes to pass, it won’t just be undocumented migrants, foreign students, asylum-seekers, and suspected gang members who end up in the crosshairs. We could all be at risk.
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Trump Slammed Over Plans for National Emergency and Mass Deportations
"Mass deportations aren't just inhumane," one congresswoman said. "Trump has a recipe for economic disaster. Farmers, workers, and consumers... all pay the price."
Nov 18, 2024
Migrant rights advocates on Monday sharply criticized U.S. President-elect Donald Trump after he confirmed plans to declare a national emergency and use the military to pursue his long-promised mass deportations, despite legal and logistical barriers.
Shortly after Trump's electoral victory earlier this month, Tom Fitton, president of the right-wing group Judicial Watch, welcomed reports that the incoming administration is "prepared to declare a national emergency and will use military assets to reverse the Biden invasion through a mass deportation program."
Fitton's post was on Trump's platform, Truth Social. The president-elect responded early Monday, simply saying, "TRUE!!!"
While Trump didn't provide additional details on Monday, fearmongering about immigrants has been a priority for the president-elect since he entered politics during the 2016 cycle and recent reporting has previewed what could come when he returns to the White House after campaigning on a pledge to "launch the largest deportation program in American history."
In the latest elections, Republicans retained control of the U.S. House of Representatives and reclaimed a Senate majority, but Democrat Yassamin Ansari had a decisive win in Arizona's 3rd Congressional District. She said Monday that "Trump's plan to use the military to aid mass deportation is abhorrent and hateful, and will directly impact many of my constituents in AZ-03. Using the world's strongest military to target the most vulnerable community is not leadership, it's abuse of power."
Vanessa Cárdenas, senior director of communication for America's Voice, similarly said in a statement that "Trump continues promoting anti-immigration hate and is using it as an excuse to appropriate the military for domestic law enforcement and circumvent normal checks and balances on presidential power."
Cárdenas continued:
Trump and allies are attempting to justify their potential use of the military to conduct indiscriminate mass raids and roundups by wrapping it in the language of 'invasion' and the false notion that America is under assault, and it must be repelled by force. Yet just because Trump and allies have spent recent years normalizing this idea and making this assertion doesn't make it any less radical. Let's be clear, this is the adoption of a white nationalist conspiracy theory, already linked to multiple deadly acts of gun violence against civilians, which is driving federal policy and Republican agendas.
Despite the martial language and emphasis on the border and recent arrivals, make no mistake that the Trump team is planning to target long-settled immigrants and mixed-status families as part of their mass deportations. Having legal status and even citizenship is not necessarily a shield of protection. Their pledges to end immigration enforcement priorities, while making as many people as possible deportable, is a disturbing tell that their definition of 'criminal' will look fundamentally different from most Americans' conceptions. Perhaps most disturbingly, the resulting fear and cruelty that will be on display is likely a feature and not a bug to those in charge.
Pointing to Trump's previous term, Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said Monday that "my lesson from the first time around is that we absolutely cannot take things that the Trumpworld people say as gospel, given their total lack of specifics and total willingness to make grandiose pronouncements that are aimed at triggering the libs and making headlines."
"The National Emergencies Act is a specific law which unlocks specific authorities to do specific things—a president doesn't declare a national emergency and then become king. And 'use the military for deportations' isn't one of those specific things," he highlighted, citing the Brennan Center for Justice guide on emergency powers.
Reichlin-Melnick acknowledged that "last time, Trump invoked a specific emergency authority to unlock military construction funding—and direct more troops to do logistical support at the border" with Mexico.
The New York Timesreported Monday that during the Republican primary campaign, "Mr. Trump's top immigration policy adviser, Stephen Miller, said that military funds would be used to build 'vast holding facilities that would function as staging centers' for immigrants as their cases progressed and they waited to be flown to other countries."
Miller—architect of the forced family separation program from Trump's first term—is set to serve as deputy chief of staff for policy in the next administration. The president-elect has also named other immigration hard-liners for key posts: Tom Homan, former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), as "border czar" and GOP South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem for homeland security secretary.
"Mr. Miller has also talked about invoking a public health emergency power to curtail hearing asylum claims," according to the Times. Trump's team also plans to "expand a form of due-process-free expulsions known as expedited removal" and "stop issuing citizenship-affirming documents, like passports and Social Security cards, to infants born on domestic soil to undocumented migrant parents."
Additionally, the newspaper noted, Trump intends to bolster the ICE ranks "with law enforcement officials who would be temporarily reassigned from other agencies, and with state National Guardsmen and federal troops activated to enforce the law on domestic soil under the Insurrection Act."
Joseph Nunn, a counsel in the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program, explained in 2022 that "although it is often referred to as the 'Insurrection Act of 1807,' the law is actually an amalgamation of different statutes enacted by Congress between 1792 and 1871" to enable "the president to deploy military forces inside the United States to suppress rebellion or domestic violence or to enforce the law in certain situations."
Congresswoman Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) on Monday expressed concern about Trump's potential use of another law enacted in 1978.
"Donald Trump plans to declare a national emergency and utilize the Alien Enemies Act to conduct mass deportations," Omar, a war refugee, said on social media. "This xenophobia and cruelty shouldn't be allowed in America. We are going to fight it every step of the way."
As Nunn's Brennan Center colleague Katherine Yon Ebright detailed last month, the law "allows the president to detain or deport the natives and citizens of an enemy nation," and although "enacted to prevent foreign espionage and sabotage in wartime, it can be—and has been—wielded against immigrants who have done nothing wrong, have evinced no signs of disloyalty, and are lawfully present in the United States."
While Trump and his allies have prepared to use any powers they can to deport the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, rights advocates and reporters have warned of the consequences of their plans for not only those people, but also 20 million mixed-status families and citizens who would suffer from the economic consequences.
As Mother Jones' Isabela Dias recently laid out, mass deportations would have major negative impacts on care, food, and infrastructure while enriching charter flight operators, consulting firms, private prison companies, and surveillance contractors.
Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas) issued a warning after Trump's Monday post, declaring that "this will hurt all of us."
Spotlighting a Monday report in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.) similarly stressed that "mass deportations aren't just inhumane—they'd devastate America's agricultural industry. Combined with his tariffs, Trump has a recipe for economic disaster. Farmers, workers, and consumers... all pay the price."
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