Recent comments from Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller suggest the Trump administration is considering suspending habeas corpus for undocumented immigrants. That’s a cornerstone legal protection enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
Habeas corpus allows an individual to challenge their detention in jails or immigration detention centers — and bring their case before a judge.
“Without the right to habeas corpus, the government could, in theory, snatch up anyone off the streets and detain them indefinitely without a court weighing in,” said ACLU of Arizona’s legal director Jared Keenan. “This right to habeas corpus is so important that it is often referred to as the great writ. And it really is something that for hundreds of years, people have relied on to challenge unlawful detentions.”
Miller told reporters at the White House on Friday that habeas corpus could be suspended in times of invasion — an option he said the administration is actively looking at.
Keenan says only Congress can actually suspend that right and it must do so under very strict guidelines. He says any attempt to remove it another way will be met with legal challenges.
