The danger is not just for Venezuelans, it sets a precedent that any administration can engineer a foreign confrontation to justify suspending civil liberties, accelerating mass deportations, or targeting immigrant communities under the guise of “national security.” This all sounding familiar?

in an era with almost no constitutional protections for immigrants. Manufacturing an external conflict in order to invoke it is a textbook Miller tactic: create a crisis, use the crisis to claim extraordinary authority, and then apply that authority to carry out hardline domestic policy goals.

This is where the Stephen Miller influence is clearest. For years he has searched for statutory loopholes and obscure executive authorities that avoid judicial review. The Alien Enemies Act is particularly attractive because it is broad, vague, and historically under-challenged; it was written

paper, the broader strategic goal is to create a legal precedent that wartime powers can be blended with immigration enforcement opening the door for future expansions to other nationalities or categories of immigrants simply by linking them to a “security threat.”

invoked, the law gives the executive the power to impose curfews, forced registration, GPS tracking, detention, or deportation of Venezuelan nationals with minimal due process. It essentially bypasses traditional immigration courts entirely. And although the statute would apply to Venezuelans on

can then issue a proclamation stating that U.S. forces have been “engaged” or that “active hostilities” exist. A formal declaration of war is not required; even historically, the Alien Enemies Act has been triggered by presidential declarations of hostilities rather than votes in Congress. Once

To make this work, the administration would first escalate tensions military deployments, naval maneuvers in the Caribbean, airstrikes framed as “self-defense,” or any confrontation that can be described as an act of Venezuelan aggression. The president

deference to the executive branch when it claims war powers, which dramatically reduces judicial oversight. The political logic is simple: a foreign conflict is being used as a pretext to unlock a domestic tool that normally would be unconstitutional to deploy at scale.

But by creating even a limited foreign conflict, the administration can claim that a state of hostilities exists, and once that designation is in place, the president can argue that Venezuelan nationals fall under wartime authority. Courts have historically granted wide

from a country the U.S. is at war with or engaged in hostilities against. Under ordinary circumstances, the government cannot legally conduct mass detentions or broad, nationality-based deportations due-process protections, asylum law, and federal courts all create barriers that stop overreach.