On January 2, 1920, over 500 government agents acting on direction of US Attorney General Mitchell Palmer carried out a massive counter-terror operation in 33 US cities, arresting between six and ten thousand aliens suspected of Communism, radicalism and anarchism. The "Palmer Raids" and the detentions and deportation proceedings that followed them were denounced by a number of prominent lawyers and judges who later established the American Civil Liberties Union.



Read an excerpt from Attorney General Palmer's 1920 article, The Case Against the 'Reds' and learn more about the Palmer Raids and the Red Scare of 1919-20.