Power Grab/Fire anyone who can stop him
Stephen Miller says suspending habeas corpus is “an option we’re actively looking at”
Asked whether Trump might suspend the writ for illegal immigration, the White House deputy chief of staff tied the answer to how courts rule.
What happened
On May 9, 2025, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller took questions from reporters outside the White House. Asked whether Trump might suspend habeas corpus for illegal immigration, he said: “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 suspension was “an option we’re actively looking at.” He added: “Look, a lot of it depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.” That tied a possible suspension of the right to challenge detention in court to judges’ rulings against the administration.
The same day a judge ordered Tufts student Rumeysa Ozturk released on a habeas petition. Courts were ruling against the administration’s use of the Alien Enemies Act. Habeas corpus is how detained people, citizens and noncitizens alike, force the government to justify holding them. No suspension was attempted.
Who benefited
The administration gained leverage in its confrontation with the courts over immigration detention. By signaling that adverse rulings could be met by removing judicial review altogether, the remark put pressure on judges. Miller, who sets the outer bounds of the immigration crackdown, kept that position.
Who wanted something
Miller made the statement himself. He had led the effort to frame migration as an invasion in order to unlock emergency powers, including the Alien Enemies Act proclamation. Trump had said days earlier that he did not know whether noncitizens were entitled to due process. The remark served the argument that courts were the obstacle.
Who lost out
Everyone held in federal immigration detention, including U.S. citizens wrongly detained, depends on habeas petitions as the working check on indefinite or mistaken custody. The judiciary lost as well: its rulings were cast as triggers for stripping its own jurisdiction.
Why it matters
A senior White House official put suspension of the writ, a step the Constitution reserves for rebellion or invasion, on the table as a response to losing in court. The Suspension Clause sits in Article I, the section on Congress’s powers. The threat did not need to be carried out to pressure judges and detainees alike.