Scholars’ Circle – Alien Enemies Act policy use to deport immigrants and asylum seekers – August 31, 2025

The Trump Administration is using the Alien Enemies Act to seize Venezuelans and ship them to a notorious prison El Salvador without due process. What can be done to protect and uphold the rule of law and human rights in the face of the Trump Administration’s rejection of them? What are some means of legal and political resistance when human rights are being violated? [ dur: 58mins. ]

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  Jennifer Selin is Associate Professor of Law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University. She’s written numerous articles, and in particular, Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans to El Salvador sparks light Legal questions likely to reach the Supreme Court.


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  Victor Narro is Project Director for the UCLA Labor Center and Core Faculty for the UCLA Department of Labor Studies. He teaches immigration law and is author of The Activist Spirit – Toward a Radical Solidarity and No One Size Fits All: Worker Organization, Policy, and Movement in a New Economic Age (Cornell University Press, 2018) and others.


• Andrea Pitzer is an author and podcaster. She’s written One Long Night, a global history of concentration camps. This traces the idea of mass civilian detention without trial from its beginnings through Auschwitz and beyond, including up to today. She’s also the host of the podcast, Next Comes What.

This program is produced by Doug Becker, Ankine Aghassian, Maria Armoudian and Sudd Dongre.

Recorded April, 2025.