Is It Time to Deploy the Alien Enemies Act Against Iranians in the U.S.?
Is Iran an enemy state?
By George Fishman on November 12, 2024
The State Department has concluded that “In 2022, Iran increasingly encouraged and plotted attacks against the [U.S.], including against former U.S. officials,” noting that the Justice Department had “disrupted an [Iran Revolutionary Guard Corp-Qods Force] IRGC-QF-led plot to assassinate former National Security Advisor John Bolton and arrested a suspected Iranian operative accused of planning the assassination”.
This May, I asked whether Iran-led assassinations, or attempted assassinations, on U.S. soil would trigger the Alien Enemies Act’s (AEA) provisions allowing the president to summarily detain and remove nationals of enemy nations. I concluded that “a strong argument can be made that such acts would” indeed trigger the AEA.
Just last month, Steve Holland reported for Reuters that “At [President] Biden's direction, top U.S. officials have sent messages to the highest levels of the Iranian government warning Tehran to cease all plotting against Trump and former U.S. officials. … The Iranians have been told that Washington would view it as an act of war if any attempt was carried out against [Donald] Trump's life.”
Then, on Friday, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland announced that DOJ “has charged an asset of the Iranian regime who was tasked by the regime to direct a network of criminal associates to further Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President-elect Donald Trump”.
https://cis.org/Fishman/It-Time-Deploy-Alien-Enemies-Act-Against-Iranians-US
