Alien Enemies No More

Plus: Depriving the children of toys, a curbside rat feast, China wants to talk, and more…

The decision by Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. “amounted to a philosophical rejection of the White House’s attempts to transpose the Alien Enemies Act, which was passed in 1798 as the nascent United States was threatened by war with France, into the context of modern-day immigration policy,” per The New York Times. Rodriguez argues that “the President’s invocation of the AEA through the Proclamation [which invokes the act and designates the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua a foreign terrorist organization] exceeds the scope of the statute and is contrary to the plain, ordinary meaning of the statute’s terms.”

“The President cannot summarily declare that a foreign nation or government has threatened or perpetrated an invasion or predatory incursion of the United States, followed by the identification of the alien enemies subject to detention or removal,” adds Rodriguez. “This decision correctly recognized that the president cannot simply declare there’s an invasion and invoke a wartime authority during peacetime. As the court recognized, Congress never intended this law to be used in this manner,” said American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) lawyer Lee Gelernt in response to the ruling. (The ACLU has so far filed suit in Texas, New York, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Washington, and Georgia challenging the Trump administration’s use of the AEA.)

Rodriguez declined to rule on the factual matters asserted by Trump, such as the degree to which Tren de Aragua’s activities are controlled by the Venezuelan government.

Unless the decision is overturned when appealed, federal authorities will now be barred from deporting any Venezuelans in the Southern District of Texas via the Alien Enemies Act. It remains to be seen how other judges will rule, but this is a significant defeat for the Trump administration.

Anti-abundance agenda: “Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know?,” said Trump yesterday at the end of a Cabinet meeting, attempting to combat worries about inflation clearing the shelves. “And maybe the two dolls will cost a couple of bucks more than they would normally.”

Look, mass-produced plastic crap from Mattel and Fisher-Price is not my thing, personally. And more people should probably KonMari the heck out of their houses. But “your kids will have less stuff and it’ll be harder for you to afford” is…not a winning sales pitch to voters in the slightest, and I think Trump underestimates how much people will chafe at the idea that they must go backward, to a time when smartphones and toys and groceries were just harder to afford.

Also, you know who buys a lot of kids’ toys? Families with a bunch of kids. That’s not materialism run amok, that’s operating at scale. You know, the very types of families the Trump administration is looking to boost. We have a birthrate that’s below replacement, and a lot of folks aligned with the MAGA right are worried about this (for good reason, in my opinion). Making families poorer, and making it more expensive to buy toys—and clothes, and school supplies, and sports equipment, and art supplies, and rubber duckies, and strollers, and car seats—is one of the worst pro-natalist policies I can think of.

A historically accurate view: “Let’s look at the common claim that Mexican or Central American immigrants will not fit in with U.S. culture as well as previous waves of immigrants did, because they are just ‘too different’ from the white Europeans who mostly made up those earlier waves,” writes Darby Saxbe in Natal Gazing. “Of course, parts of the U.S. were originally in Mexico for centuries, so you could argue that places like Arizona, New Mexico, California, and Texas already have a deeply rooted Hispanic heritage; it’s important to be specific when we talk about ‘American culture,’ because it differs from place to place.…Moreover, Mexicans and Central Americans are themselves multiracial, or mestizo. But it’s also a historical whitewash, because people from different parts of Europe were seen as extremely different from each other when they first showed up in the United States. The perceived distance between a Polish person and an Irish person, or an Italian and a Brit, was incredibly vast. These groups spoke different languages, practiced different religions, had different customs and histories, and upheld different values. If you read Agatha Christie novels from as recently as the 1950s, you’ll find casual racism directed at everyone from the French to the Slavs. Ethnonationalists who want to preserve some kind of white ‘American’ identity ignore the fact that your average American is a mishmash of these multiple separate European cultural groups which were once viewed as wildly, irreconcilably disparate.”

Saxbe is making a broader point about how “ethnonationalism” is not really what pro-natalism is about, despite leftist detractors frequently claiming that those who are worried about the birthrate merely want to preserve White America.

Composting for all households across the city became mandatory back in October, but the crackdown only started last month, resulting in sanitation enforcement issuing over 4,000 tickets in the first two weeks to buildings that didn’t comply. It’s unclear why they’ve mostly suspended enforcement, though it might be due to the program’s unpopularity as well as Mayor Eric Adams’ bid for reelection.

As for me and my house, no amount of “education” will convince me that my scarce time and kitchen space ought to be spent on composting. Sounds like a curbside feast for rats, and a silly use of my limited relaxation hours. (And as a Stosselite, I am wired to be skeptical.)

QUICK HITS

• The great Ross Douthat helps me fully embrace tradwifedom, and gives us all a guide for how to survive the “age of digital extinction” with our souls intact (relevant to some of my ranting yesterday about Her and Mark Zuckerberg and the anti-social era):

• Trump wants to starve the NPR beast. Yesterday, he signed an executive order that directs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) to cut NPR and PBS funding due to their production of “left-wing propaganda.” Sure. But why not destroy the CPB altogether? And it’s not just the lefty bias present in NPR’s work that’s the problem, but also the fact that the government doesn’t need to fund journalism or broadcasting at all. (In fact, there’s an obvious tension there. What government-funded outlet will truly hold state actors accountable for their numerous misdeeds?)
• “China said it is assessing the possibility of trade talks with the US, the first sign since Donald Trump hiked tariffs last month that negotiations could begin between the two sides,” reports Bloomberg. Related:

• “Trump administration national security advisor Mike Waltz and other staffers are out at the National Security Council,” reports Fox News. Both “Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, were ousted Thursday. Sources said additional staffers removed from the office will likely be announced, and President Donald Trump is expected to speak publicly about the matter.” This appears likely related to the Signal group chat leak.
• “Like in nearly every country, Hong Kong’s problems ultimately derive from uncertain property rights regimes that do not let those who would benefit from development trade with those who have the power for it to be blocked,” writes Benedict Springbett at Works in Progress.

Associate Editor, Reason

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