Who Is Andy Biggs?

According to Jacob Adams at The Daily Signal, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Arizona) recently introduced a resolution in the U.S. House of Representatives “to recognize and declare members and affiliates of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as ‘alien enemies’ under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 and the criminal organization itself as a ‘terrorist organization perpetrating an invasion of the United States directly and at the direction of a foreign government.’”

“Tren de Aragua is a foreign terrorist organization, and their members can no longer be permitted to wreak havoc on U.S. soil,” Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., told The Daily Signal.

“The Alien Enemies Act gives the president of the United States the authority to detain and deport aliens from foreign adversarial nations, and the U.S. Supreme Court affirmed that authority yesterday,” he said.

“Members of the violent gang Tren de Aragua illegally invaded the United States during Joe Biden’s four-year open-border campaign, and President Trump is acting well within his authority to protect our homeland,” Biggs said, adding:

Congress must stand behind President [Donald] Trump as he works to fulfill the demands of the American people to secure our border and restore safety to our communities.

Biggs’ measure would make clear in law that the president “is exercising his constitutional and legal authority to repel an invasion of alien enemies by apprehending, restraining, securing, and removing members and affiliates of Tren de Aragua from the United States of America.”

The Alien Enemies Act of 1798 states that the president has the authority under the conditions of declared war or “any invasion or predatory incursion” to apprehend and remove “males of the age of fourteen years and upwards, who shall be within the United States, and not actually naturalized.” 

The Arizona lawmaker’s legislation contends that James Madison’s comments at the Virginia Ratifying Convention for the Constitution and definitions for “invasion” from Webster’s dictionaries in 1806 and 1828 clearly show that actions by non-state actors would be encompassed within the term.