The deputy chief of staff of the White House, Stephen Miller, said on Friday that the Trump administration “actively planned” to suspend the Habeas Corpus, a person's right to challenge his detention in court.
If President Donald Trump was carried out, the suspension of Habeas Corpus would be a spectacular escalation of the immigration policy of his administration by considerably restricting a right registered in the Constitution.
“First, you know, President Trump spoke of potentially suspending the Habeas Corpus to take care of the illegal immigration problem. When could we see this happening in the future?” Asked a journalist to Miller speaking in front of the White House.
“The constitution is clear, and, of course, is the supreme law of the country, that the privilege of the brief of Habeas Corpus can be suspended in time of invasion,” replied Miller.
“So this is an option that we are actively examining,” he continued.
Photo: The deputy chief of staff of the White House, Stephen Miller, speaks with the media outside the White House in Washington, May 9, 2025. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
The constitution allows the suspension of the Habeas Corpus in extraordinary circumstances such as an invasion or a rebellion when it would be necessary to protect public security.
According to the National Constitution Center, the UNITED STATES Hat Habeas Corpus four times in the past – during the civil war, during the reconstruction in South Carolina, in the Philippines during an insurrection of 1905, and in Hawaii in 1941 after Pearl Harbor was bombed by Japan during the Second World War.
Photo: President Donald Trump speaks with journalists while signing a decree in the oval office of the White House, May 9, 2025. (Alex Brandon / AP)
Miller justified the potential suspension of the Habeas Corpus by arguing that the United States is currently faced with a national security threat by undelated “undelated” the United States.
A similar justification was used by Trump in March to invoke the law on extraterrestrial enemies – a law which would allow the rapid expulsion of non -citizens with little or not of a regular procedure – to remove the alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
But two distinct federal judges, one of which was appointed by Trump, said that the use of the extraterrestrial enemy law was illegal because the Trump administration did not prove the United States is invaded by Tren de Aragua.
Photo: The deputy chief of staff of the White House, Stephen Miller, speaks with the media outside the White House in Washington, May 9, 2025. (Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images)
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Miller said that the administration's decision would be summed up whether the “courts do the right thing or not”.
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But legal experts say that the question is not as cut and dried as Miller suggests, and that a president cannot suspend the Habeas corpus without authorization from the congress.
“Miller cannot mention that almost universal consensus is that only Congress can suspend the Habeas Corpus – and that the unilateral suspensions by the president are in itself unconstitutional,” writes the professor of Georgetown University Law Center, Steve Vladeck, written in his Substitution blog.
“He suggests that the administration to suspend (illegally) the Habeas corpus if (but apparently only if) he does not agree with the way in which the courts govern themselves in these cases. In other words, it is not the judicial review itself which is in danger national security; it is the possibility that the government can lose.
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President Abraham Lincoln suspended the brief of Habeas Corpus at the start of the civil war.
But the chief judge of the time, Roger Taney, judged this illegal decision, noting that the operational clause is in article I of the Constitution, which details the powers of the congress, and not the president.
Lincoln finally asked for the approval of the congress for the suspension while the war was dragging.
The WH says Trump plans to suspend the Habeas Corpus. What would that mean? Originally appeared on ABCNews.go.com
