Top Trump adviser Stephen Miller got the weekend off to a bang by telling his fellow Americans the Trump White House would like to suspend even more constitutional rights.
Speaking to reporters on Friday, the White House deputy chief of staff said the Trump administration has been “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus, a fundamental legal right that allows anyone arrested by the government to challenge their detention in court.
“Well, the Constitution is clear — and that, of course, is the supreme law of the land — that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in a time of invasion,” Miller said, using the administration’s xenophobic argument that immigration to the U.S. amounts to an invasion.
Habeas corpus, which means “you should have the body” in Latin, is supposed to guarantee an individual’s right to physically appear in front of a judge and challenge their detention.
However, the Trump administration has invoked the Alien Enemies Act, an obscure 18th-century power, to send foreign nationals to prison in El Salvador without due process.
The act is only supposed to be used in wartime, and just this past week, two federal judges blocked the Trump administration from using it to justify its rendition of immigrants to foreign prisons.
“Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not,” Miller said of whether the administration would truly seek to suspend habeus corpus.
You can watch the exchange below courtesy of C-SPAN.
Just days ago, President Donald Trump suggested that he was unaware that U.S. citizens and noncitizens alike have a right to due process, as laid out in the Constitution.
The Trump administration’s threats are alarming people on and off social media. Online, people denounced Miller for being “full of shit” and his remarks as “full-blown fascism.”
“Suspension of habeas corpus is the end of a free United States,” one person wrote.
