President Donald Trump‘s involvement in internal government conversations about perhaps going so far as to suspend habeas corpus has brought the issue into the public eye.
What does habeas corpus mean?
People who feel they are being wrongfully detained or imprisoned can apply for their release in court under the legal doctrine of habeas corpus. In recent months, Trump has attempted to expedite deportations as part of his immigration policy, prompting applications for habeas corpus from immigrants and rights organisations. However, most immigrants will find it difficult to get attorneys, and habeas petitions are notoriously hard to win in federal court.
How has the Supreme Court ruled on habeas corpus?
A partial victory for migrants came on April 7 when the Supreme Court issued a vague, unsigned order allowing Trump to use the centuries-old Alien Enemies Act to expedite deportations for the time being. The court also stated that migrants who were to be deported under the act were entitled to notice and a chance to contest their removal through federal habeas corpus petitions.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a number of habeas cases in response to the Supreme Court’s ruling, aiming to defend both named individuals and “similarly situated” Venezuelans who may be singled out under the Alien Enemies Act. A majority of justices on the Supreme Court prevented the Trump administration from deporting a group of immigrants in Texas in an unusual nighttime ruling on April 19.
In which other cases has habeas corpus arisen?
In recent years, habeas corpus has been applied in US courts, particularly in relation to the detention of suspected enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Detainees in the Guantanamo jail were granted the right to habeas corpus by the Supreme Court in 2008.
In one instance, a federal court said in 2021 that it was illegal to hold one person at the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay. Asadullah Haroon Gul, who was charged with belonging to an extreme organisation, was granted a writ of habeas corpus by the judge.
Gul was the first prisoner at Guantanamo Bay to successfully file a habeas petition in a decade. The United States then repatriated Gul to Afghanistan.
Mahmoud Khalil, the Palestinian activist and lawful permanent resident who was arrested by immigration officials in March, is the subject of another well-known habeas corpus case. Khali challenged the validity of his incarceration through a habeas corpus petition, and his case is currently pending court challenges while he is set to be deported.
Does habeas corpus have a history of suspension before?
Only four times in US history has habeas corpus been suspended, including during the Civil War by former President Abraham Lincoln.
According to the National Constitution Center, the other three instances were “in two provinces of the Philippines during a 1905 insurgency; in Hawaii following the bombing of Pearl Harbor; and in eleven South Carolina counties overrun by the Ku Klux Klan during Reconstruction.”
