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While talking to reporters at the White House, Miller said in a now-viral clip: "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. So, it's an option we're actively looking at."
"Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not," Miller added.
According to the Constitution Center, the writ of habeas corpus allows someone who is serving time in prison to test the "legality of their detention." If the person's detention cannot be proven to be lawful, then they must be released.
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According to Cornell Law School, the Executive Branch does NOT have the power to suspend habeas corpus; only Congress does. Per the Suspension Clause of the Constitution: "The Privileges of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."
If and when the writ of habeas corpus is suspended, the president can imprison people "indefinitely" without judicial checks, per the Constitution Center.
Throughout US history, the writ of habeas corpus has been suspended by the government four times: during the "Civil War; in eleven South Carolina counties overrun by the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction; in two provinces of the Philippines during a 1905 insurrection; and in Hawaii after the bombing of Pearl Harbor."
The Trump Administration's admission to "actively looking" at suspending habeas corpus by labeling undocumented immigration into the US as an "invasion" is a slippery slope. Here's some of what people are saying:
"Suspending habeas corpus would suspend the right for everyone, not just for undocumented people," one person wrote. "So what Stephen Miller is saying here is that Trump is thinking about asserting the right to throw Americans in prison while giving them no opportunity to use the courts to get out."
"They want to do this so they can arrest anyone that protests and says negative shit about Trump. Full on Russia shit. They genuinely are trying to go full dictatorship. These MAGA people are just going to let it happen too," another person said.
As this person said, "Reinterpreting the Constitution on a whim in an effort to grant authoritarian powers is unpatriotic and un-American."
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