Editor’s note: Threats of mass deportations creates uncertainty and uneasiness, even for migrants legally in U.S.

My family recently began wondering whether a relative of mine, who immigrated legally to the United States earlier this year, should worry if President-elect Donald Trump follows through with his threat of conducting mass deportations under the Alien Enemies Act. “We’re following the rules and the legal process,” said a different family member, who has been supportive through the immigration process and called the threat of mass deportations “cutthroat behavior.” “Make(s) you think, ‘Would we ever be impacted by it?’” they asked.

Katherine Yon Ebright, counsel in the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program and who focuses on war powers and the constitutional separation of powers, said Trump wants to invoke the law in response to “‘invasions’ by gangs and cartels from El Salvador, Mexico, and Venezuela,” and that “invoking the Alien Enemies Act in peacetime would be a staggering abuse of the law.” If the law is invoked, noncitizens ages 14 and up, who were born in or hold the citizenships of the mentioned countries, would be impacted. “That includes noncitizens who are lawfully present in the United States, whether as asylum-seekers, visa-holders, or even green card-holders,” Yon Ebright said in an email statement. My relative, who I kept unnamed to protect their privacy, did not come from any of those nations – so they are safe, for now. Trump could always invoke the law as it has been applied in the past, Yon Ebright warned, “broadly and used against noncitizens based on little more than their identity.”