In his second inaugural address, President Donald Trump reached back into history to signal how he will implement his promise to control our nation’s borders and to expand those borders by acquiring new territory. Trump’s reach extended to 1798, when Congress passed and President John Adams signed the Alien Enemies Act.
It also extended to the years 1803, 1819 and 1821, 1845 and 1848, 1867, 1898, and 1903, when, respectively, Presidents Thomas Jefferson acquired the Louisiana Territory, James Monroe acquired Florida, James Polk acquired Texas, California, Nevada, New Mexico, and parts of what became Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Wyoming, Andrew Johnson acquired Alaska, William McKinley acquired Hawaii, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, and Guam, and Theodore Roosevelt acquired the Panama Canal.
Trump promised to secure America’s borders by declaring “a national emergency at our southern border,” halting all illegal entry there, returning “criminal aliens” to their own countries, reinstating the “Remain in Mexico” program, ending “catch and release,” “send[ing] troops … to repel the dangerous invasion of our country,” “designating the cartels as foreign terrorist organizations,” and using the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to deport alien criminal gangs from American soil.
The Alien Enemies Act gives the president the power to deport aliens whenever during times of war or when “any invasion or predatory incursion shall be perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States, by any foreign nation or government.” It is a broad presidential power that is effectuated through presidential proclamation.
Trump has proclaimed the surge of illegal entries across this country’s southern border as an “invasion.” Congress passed the law and Adams signed it during our undeclared naval war with France. It was also used by James Madison during the War of 1812, Woodrow Wilson during World War I, and Franklin Roosevelt during World War II.
Trump also said that the “United States will once again consider itself a growing nation — one that increases our wealth, expands our territory, builds our cities, raises our expectations, and carries our flag into new and beautiful horizons.”
Americans, Trump said, “are explorers, builders, innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers.”
And he pledged to “pursue our manifest destiny into the stars” by sending American astronauts to plant America’s flag on the planet Mars. Trump’s vision of “manifest destiny” (a phrase coined by journalist John L. O’Sullivan in 1845) follows the long tradition of expansionist policies that Jefferson called forging an “empire of liberty” in the Western Hemisphere, that Jefferson’s successors (especially Monroe, Polk, and Andrew Johnson) viewed as establishing a continental-sized nation “from sea to shining sea,” and that American naval historian and strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan believed extended to overseas possessions — a belief shared by Mahan’s friend Theodore Roosevelt. Trump’s manifest destiny may include the island of Greenland and the planet of Mars.
Trump invoked Presidents McKinley and Theodore Roosevelt in pledging to take back control of the Panama Canal. He accused Panama of violating the treaty that foolishly gave control of the canal to Panama by enabling China to operate the canal. “We didn’t give it to China,” Trump said. “We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.” (RELATED: China Poses a Severe Threat in Panama and Leaves the US With No Choice.)
Trump’s border control policies and expansionist goals fit within his powerful concluding remarks when he said, “We will stand bravely, we will live proudly, we will dream boldly, and nothing will stand in our way because we are Americans.”
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Publish date : 2025-01-21 14:35:00
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