The White House Cabinet Deputy Director Stephen Miller said the Trump administration is “actively looking for” suspending habeas corpus, the right of a person to challenge their detention in court.
If it is carried out by President Donald Trump, the suspension of habeas corpus would be a dramatic escalation of the immigration policy of his administration by significantly reducing a right enshrined in the Constitution.
“First, you know, President Trump has talked about potentially suspending habeas corpus to solve the problem of illegal immigration. When could we see that happens in the future?” A journalist asked Miller while talking outside the White House.
“The Constitution is clear, and that, of course, it is the Supreme Law of the Earth, that the privilege of the Order of Habeas Corpus can be suspended in the time of invasion,” Miller replied.
“So, it is an option that we are actively seeing,” he continued.
The White House Cabinet Deputy Director Stephen Miller, talks to the media outside the White House in Washington, on May 9, 2025.
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The Constitution allows the suspension of habeas corpus in extraordinary circumstances, such as an invasion or rebellion, when it would be necessary to protect public safety.
According to the National Center of the Constitution, the United States has suspended the 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 bombarded by Japan during World War II.
President Donald Trump talks to journalists while signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House, on May 9, 2025.
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Miller justified the possible suspension of Habeas Corpus by arguing that the United States currently faces a threat of national security by undocumented migrants who “invade” in the United States.
Trump used a similar logic in March to invoke the Alien Enemies Law, a law that would allow the rapid deportation of non -citizens with little or no due process, eliminate the alleged members of the Venezuelan Gang Train of Aragua.
But two separate federal judges, including one appointed by Trump, said that the use of Alien enemies law was illegal because the Trump administration did not prove that the United States is being invaded by Aragua train.
The White House Cabinet Deputy Director Stephen Miller, talks to the media outside the White House in Washington, on May 9, 2025.
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Miller said the administration’s decision would be reduced to whether the “courts do the right or not.”
But legal experts say that the problem is not as trimmed and dry as Miller suggests, and that a president cannot suspend habeas corpus without authorization from Congress.
President Abraham Lincoln suspended the famous order of habeas corpus when the civil war broke out.
But the then boss, Judge Roger Taney, considered the measure illegal, pointing out that the operational clause is found in article I of the Constitution, detailing the powers of the Congress, not that of the President.
Lincoln finally sought the approval of Congress for suspension as war progressed.