On Thursday multiple media outlets reported, citing anonymous sources, that the Trump White House is imminently planning to invoke the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as part of his administration’s ongoing criminal deportation operations.

The reactionary legislation was previously used during World War I and II to detain and deport thousands of German, Austro-Hungarian, Italian and Japanese immigrants without a hearing under the guise that because of their nationality they represented a “national security threat.” Despite it being an alleged “war-time” measure, Democratic Presidents Woodrow Wilson and Harry Truman continued to use the law to detain and deport immigrants and political enemies of the US government well after the conclusion of the imperialist wars.

Under the law the president can order the detention of American citizens of nations that are “invading” or engaged in combat with the US government without a hearing. The fact that there is no “invasion” of the United States will not stop Trump from moving to use the law to further arrogate power to himself.

During his inaugural address in January, Trump said that by invoking the law, “I will direct our government to use the full and immense power of federal and state law enforcement to eliminate the presence of all foreign gangs and criminal networks bringing devastating crime to U.S. soil, including our cities and inner cities.”

Reports indicated that the Trump administration planned to target the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua with the law initially, but there is no question the Trump regime will broaden the number of alleged “foreign terrorist organizations” to include any and all of his political opponents.

On Wednesday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released statistics on the number of deportations federal agents had initiated in the first 50 days of the Trump administration. For over a decade, Trump and the Republican Party as a whole have demonized immigrants as “murderers” and “rapists” responsible for all of society’s problems, from housing costs, to inflation and poor schools, all in a bid to divide the working class from the true source of inequality, poverty and war—the capitalist system.

The numbers released by the DHS show that the majority of those arrested have not been convicted of any crimes. Of the over 32,000 people arrested by DHS thugs in Trump’s first 50 days, over a quarter, some 8,718 people, had no criminal record or pending charges. Another 9,980 detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agents have not been convicted of any crime but instead had “pending charges.” Just over 14,000, less than half of those arrested, had been convicted of a crime, according to DHS.

DHS also reported that some 46,000 people are currently in custody, which is some 12 percent above the roughly 41,000 the agency claims it can safely detain.

Who are some of the thousands of people who have been detained or deported under the first 50 days of the Trump administration? They include tourists, workers and American children, none of whom have committed a crime.

On Wednesday, NBC reported that a 10-year-old American citizen recovering from brain cancer treatment was deported to Mexico with her four American siblings and undocumented parents. According to NBC, the family was detained at an immigration checkpoint while traveling from their home in Rio Grande City to a hospital in Houston, Texas.

NBC is withholding the names of the mother and rest of the family members “since they were deported to an area in Mexico that is known for kidnapping US citizens.”

An attorney for the family, Danny Woodward, told NBC the family had previously made the trip five other times in the past without issue but were detained this last time, despite having no criminal history. The mother told NBC that even though she presented border agents with letters from their doctors and lawyers demonstrating a medical emergency, they “weren’t interested” in hearing about her daughter’s circumstances.

After being arrested, the family was held in a detention facility for 24 hours before they were whisked into a van and dropped on the Mexico side of a Texas bridge on February 4, according to NBC.

In a video message by the mother taped Thursday from inside Mexico, she pleaded:

We have made this trip across Texas several times to take our daughter to the hospital so that she can receive the medical attention, which is what keeps her well. That’s what keeps her safe.

This time, we were detained, held, and we faced the worst decision, an impossible one, to be permanently separated from our children or to be deported together. ... We are now deported to Mexico without access to the urgent medical care our daughter needs. Our children, including American citizens, have been forced to face a crisis that no child should have to face.

According to the family, their daughter had a brain tumor removed last year, but the swelling on her brain has not fully subsided, causing her speech and mobility difficulties. Before being removed from the United States, the daughter was undergoing rehabilitation, therapy sessions and taking medication to prevent convulsions.

Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, who recently defended the kidnapping of Mahmoud Khalil by arguing that “free speech has limits,” has repeatedly threatened to deport entire families, including American citizens. “Families can be deported together,” Homan said in a “60 Minutes” interview last October.

On Tuesday, ABC 10News out of San Diego interviewed a Canadian citizen, Jasmine Mooney, who is currently incarcerated in a CoreCivic for-profit Arizona immigration detention center. Mooney told the outlet she previously worked in Los Angeles on a temporary work visa that was revoked but that she was traveling to California from Mexico after receiving a new job offer and new visa paperwork.

Despite having her paperwork, Mooney said she was arrested and kept in a cold cell. “I had to sleep on a mat with no blanket, no pillow, with an aluminum foil wrapped over my body like a dead body for two and half days,” she told the outlet.

Mooney told the outlet she has “no idea” when she will be released from the facility.

On March 10, ICE and Homeland Security Investigations agents detained Kayla Somarriba’s husband, Jesion Ruiz-Rodriguez, 26, and her brother-in-law, Cesar Ruiz-Rodriguez, 22, while they were on their way to a court hearing at the Spokane County Courthouse in Washington. Somarriba is an American citizen and currently seven months’ pregnant.

In an interview with the Spokesman-Review, Somarriba recalled the agents smashing the windows of their vehicle while refusing to provide a warrant. Somarriba told the paper in Spanish:

They immediately said Jeison and Cesar have to get out of the vehicle, so then I asked, “Why do they have to get out of the car?” and they said, “It’s because we have a warrant.” I demanded they show me the warrant, and they wouldn’t show me anything.

Video of the arrest shows the agents smashing the windows and aggressively grabbing Somarriba, Jeison and Cesar.

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Somarriba told the paper that her husband has been trying to get a green card for nearly 10 years, first filing paperwork in 2015. “I am an American citizen; I know exactly how the law works, and what they did was illegal,” she said.