Alien and Sedition Acts
series of Acts of Congress
The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 were four U.S. statutes that restricted naturalization, empowered the president of the United States to detain and deport foreigners, and criminalized false or malicious statements against the federal government. The laws were endorsed by the Federalist Party, led by President John Adams, on national security grounds in response to the later stages of the French Revolution and ongoing disputes with the French revolutionary government which had culminated in naval skirmishes. The prosecution of American journalists under the Sedition Act rallied public support for the opposition, led by Thomas Jefferson, who defeated Adams in the presidential election of 1800.
Under the Jefferson administration, three of the four Acts were repealed. Only the Alien Enemies Act, granting the president powers of detention and deportation of foreigners in wartime or in face of a threatened invasion, remained in force. It was invoked by United States presidents during the War of 1812, World War I, and World War II. During both World Wars, it provided the legal authority for the internment of German Americans. During World War II, it also provided the legal authority for the internment of Japanese Americans and the internment of Italian Americans, which was authorized by an executive order on purely racial grounds. In March 2025, President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act as his authority for expediting deportation of foreigners; this invocation is subject to ongoing litigation.
Summary
History
After the American Revolutionary War concluded, France was unable to provide further loans; Congress could no longer pay its soldiers. In 1793, Congress unilaterally suspended repayment of French loans from the war, and in 1794 signed the Jay Treaty with Great Britain.
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This entry incorporates text from “Alien and Sedition Acts” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.