The enemy alien category has a 200-year genealogy of targeting suspect populations.

Evidence

As David Cole (2003) argues, the legal basis of such controls were long in the making, as demonstrated by the construction of the category ”enemy alien.” The ”enemy alien” classification allows perceived threats from suspect populations in the form of ideology, identity, or even opposition to U.S. interests, to be isolated and removed through the force of deportation. The legal history of this category can be traced to a number of laws and events, including the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798, the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the Palmer Raids that targeted suspected anarchists (most of whom were immigrants) at the beginning of the twentieth century, the internment of Japanese immigrants and Americans during the Second World War, and the infamous red scare led by Senator Joseph McCarthy (Cole 2003, 7–8). — Junaid Rana, Terrifying Muslims, 769

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘enemy alien’ legal genealogy tracks the expanding-circles-of-suspicion theme and connects to securitization accounts in civil-liberties literature.
• SEED: Article angle: ‘enemy alien’ as the enduring legal template through which each generation’s suspect population gets deported — from anarchists and Japanese internees to post-9/11 Muslims.