WASHINGTON: A senior White House official said Friday that President Donald Trump, as part of his sweeping immigration crackdown, is looking at suspending habeas corpus, the right of a person to challenge their detention in court.
“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,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller told reporters.
“So it’s an option we’re actively looking at,” Miller said. “A lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.”
Trump campaigned for the White House on a pledge to deport millions of undocumented migrants and has repeatedly referred to their presence in the United States as an “invasion.”
Since taking office in January, Trump has been seeking to step up deportations, but his efforts have met with pushback from multiple federal courts which have insisted that migrants targeted for removal receive due process.
Among other measures, the Republican president invoked an obscure wartime law in March to summarily deport hundreds of alleged Venezuelan gang members to a prison in El Salvador.
Several federal courts have blocked further deportations using the 1798 Alien Enemies Act and the Supreme Court also weighed in, saying migrants subject to deportation under the AEA must be given an opportunity to legally challenge their removal in court.
The AEA was last used to round up Japanese-Americans during World War II and was previously invoked during the War of 1812 and World War I.
Suspending habeas corpus could potentially allow the administration to dispense with individual removal proceedings and speed up deportations, but the move would almost certainly be met with stiff legal challenges and end up in the Supreme Court.
It has been suspended only rarely in US history, most notably by president Abraham Lincoln during the 1861-1865 Civil War and in Hawaii after the December 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.
Trump admin ‘looking at’ suspending right to court challenge for detainees
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Trump admin ‘looking at’ suspending right to court challenge for detainees
Trump doesn’t want Americans hurt but blames Democrats: White House
- The White House described the shooting death of Alex Pretti by federal agents on Saturday as a “tragedy”
WASHINGTON: The White House said Monday that President Donald Trump did not want to see anyone hurt on US streets but quickly blamed Democrats again after anti-immigrant agents killed a second person in Minneapolis.
“Nobody in the White House, including President Trump, wants to see people getting hurt or killed in America’s streets,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters.
She described the shooting death of Alex Pretti — whom a Trump aide had quickly and without evidence branded a “domestic terrorist” — by federal agents on Saturday as a “tragedy.”
“We mourn for the parents. As a mother myself, of course, I cannot imagine the loss of life,” she said.
But the conciliatory tone was short-lived. Leavitt quickly blamed the rival Democratic Party for unrest that has broken out since Trump ordered a surge in Minneapolis by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), masked and armed agents deployed in force against local wishes.
“This tragedy occurred as a result of a deliberate and hostile resistance by Democrat leaders in Minnesota,” Leavitt said, blaming Governor Tim Walz and Mayor Jacob Frey, both Democrats.
She accused elected Democrats of “spreading lies about federal law enforcement officers who are risking their lives daily to remove the worst criminal illegal aliens from our streets.”
She demanded that Walz, to whom Trump spoke by telephone on Monday, and Frey fully cooperate with federal agents and “turn over all illegal aliens” detained by local authorities.
Pretti had a permit to carry a gun, although video footage did not show him taking out his weapon before ICE agents appeared to shoot him multiple times.
Trump’s Republican Party long has defended the right to carry weapons virtually without restriction, and Leavitt said Trump supports the right to bear arms.
But she added: “Any gun owner knows that when you are carrying a weapon, when you are bearing arms and you are confronted by law enforcement, you are raising the assumption of risk, and the risk of force being used against you.”
“That’s unfortunately what took place on Saturday,” she said.
