Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem says the constitutional provision that allows people to legally challenge their detention by the government is actually a tool the Trump administration can use in its broader crackdown at the US-Mexico border, the AP reports. She called habeas corpus "a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country and suspend their rights." Noem, testifying before a congressional committee Tuesday, gave that response when asked by Sen. Maggie Hassan to define the legal concept.
"That's incorrect," the New Hampshire Democrat swiftly interrupted Noem, defining the "legal principle that requires that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people." Hassan, a former attorney who practiced in Boston, went on to call habeas corpus "the foundational right that separates free societies like America from police states like North Korea." The Latin term means, literally, "you have the body." Federal courts use a writ of habeas corpus to bring a prisoner before a neutral judge to determine if imprisonment is legal.
The back and forth follows comments by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who said earlier this month that President Trump is looking for ways to expand his administration's legal power to deport migrants who are in the United States illegally. To achieve that, Miller said the administration is "actively looking at" suspending habeas corpus. Habeas corpus was included in the Constitution as an import from English common law. Parliament enacted the Habeas Corpus Act of 1679, which was meant to ensure that the king released prisoners when the law did not justify confining them. (Click for more, including the four times the US has suspended habeas corpus.)