Stephen Miller, deputy White House Chief of Staff, who coordinated Trump's crackdown on immigration, told reporters Friday that the administration is considering suspending its right to challenge court detention before being deported.
“The constitution is clear,” he said outside the White House, claiming that the rights known as habeas corps warrants “may be suspended during invasion.”
“That's an option we're actively considering,” he says, “a lot of that depends on whether the court does the right thing.”
Article 1 of the Constitution deals with warrants for habeas and calls it the privilege of “uninterrupted” unless public safety is required in the case of rebellion or invasion.
Abraham Lincoln suspended the corpus of people on multiple occasions during the civil war. And in 1863, Congress passed a law that gave him a clear right to do so during these hostilities.
Trump and his representatives have repeatedly compared the crackdown on repelling illegal immigration and invasions into the war. In his speech, he introduced the waves of immigrants entering the United States as an invasion, and evoked another wartime authority – to accelerate the deportation of Venezuelans, who were accused of being members of the gangster Tren de Aragua in March. The deportation carried out under that law has been challenged by the court, and the Supreme Court has now blocked further deportation under that law.
The Trump administration argued in some of these cases that courts cannot override his decision on how, where, and when immigrants will be deported.
Miller reflected that sentiment in comments to reporters outside the White House on Friday, arguing that Trump's ruling would not be hampered by the courts as Congress placed an immigration court under the executive officer rather than the judicial division.
