The White House is “actively looking at” whether to suspend the ability of migrants to challenge their detention in court as part of an effort to speed its deportation efforts, senior adviser Stephen Miller said Friday.
“The Constitution is clear that, of course, it is the supreme law of the land that the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus can be suspended in time of invasion — so it’s an option we’re actually looking at, but a lot of it depends on whether the court will do the right thing or not,” Miller told reporters.
Habeas corpus allows for those detained by the government to challenge the detention and be released from imprisonment after wrongful arrest. In immigration proceedings, habeas reviews can consider how long migrants are being held before deportations, and the conditions of their imprisonment.
Habeas corpus has only occasionally been suspended throughout US history: during the Civil War and reconstruction, in the US-controlled Philippines in 1905, and in Hawaii following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.
Miller spoke hours after a federal judge in Vermont ordered the immediate release of a Tufts University doctoral student who was detained by immigration officers in March, as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on foreign students who participated in campus demonstrations against Israel.
Rümeysa Öztürk wrote an op-ed in her school newspaper critical of the university’s response to the war in Gaza; the administration has alleged, without providing evidence, that she participated in activities in support of Hamas.
Asked about the case, Miller said there was “a judicial coup” underway in the country and that the executive branch had “absolute authority” to revoke visas without review by the courts.
“This judicial coup by a handful of Marxist judges to frustrate that effort can only be understood as an attack on democracy,” Miller said.
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