enemy alien

[en-uh-mee ey-lee-uhn, eyl-yuhn]

noun

1. a person residing in a country at war with the country of which they are a citizen.

Word History and Origins

Origin of enemy alien¹

First recorded in 1945–50

Example Sentences

German culture and the German language were virtually erased from American society almost overnight — sauerkraut was rebranded as “Liberty cabbage,” seriously — and as historian Matthew Stibbe writes, the “enemy alien hysteria” of the war years fed right into the Red Scare immediately afterward:

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In his appeal on behalf of the Trump administration, Sauer said the judge had ordered “unprecedented relief: dictating to the United States that it must not only negotiate with a foreign country to return an enemy alien on foreign soil.”

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District Judge Paula Xinis, an Obama appointee, had ordered “unprecedented relief: dictating to the United States that it must not only negotiate with a foreign country to return an enemy alien on foreign soil, but also succeed by 11:59 p.m. tonight.”

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Picasso — who had not previously sought citizenship — may have been motivated by fears of an imminent Spanish-German alliance, which would have classified him as an enemy alien.

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He was transferred from an Immigration and Naturalization Service facility in Montana to the center for enemy alien internees in Louisiana.

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