Habeas Corpus.

Keep your grubby little fingers off, Trump regime.

Although I don’t really want to write about politics here, sometimes I just can’t ignore what’s going on with our democracy. I’ve mentioned it many times, but growing up in Germany after World War II and the Nazi time made me rather allergic to anything that smacks of totalitarianism and dictatorship. And the writing has been on the wall for a number of years, with the brainwashed MAGA cult members on the one hand and the Project 2025 indoctrination on the other (which goes back at least to the Lewis Powell Memo from 1971).

So, what happened recently? First of all, on Friday the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Stephen Miller, declared in front of reporters that the Trump administration is seriously considering suspending Habeas Corpus, the constitutional right of a prisoner to challenge their detention. The unapologetically racist and white supremacist who separated children from their families, who was the leading official to extort universities by revoking federal funding unless they change their policies, and who is responsible for a slew of other atrocities wants to pick people off the streets, lock them up and throw away the key, make them disappear for good – without access to a lawyer, without due process, without a phone call to family. And if that’s not troubling enough, the fact that Congress doesn’t raise a loud alarm about this is even more shocking.

Clearly, to get rid of habeas corpus would violate the Constitution which declares:

Article I, Section 9, Clause 2:

The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.

There is no rebellion or invasion.

A good translation of the Medieval Latin term Habeas corpus is You should have the body, and it means that anybody who is charged with a crime and is put in prison has the right to appear before a judge who will decide whether this detainment is unlawful or justified. It’s not about guilt or innocence but means that a person who has been imprisoned will be brought into a courtroom to hear what they’re charged with.

Two recent cases show why the Trump regime would like to do without Habeas corpus:

1. Rümeysa Öztürk, a Turkish national who is a doctoral student and Fulbright scholar at Tufts University in Somerville/MA and has a valid F-1 student visa, was detained on March 25 by masked, plain clothed individuals without explanation. She spent about 45 days in an ICE detention center in Louisiana and was released on bail on May 9. Her lawyers had filed a habeas corpus petition on her behalf.

2. Mohsen Mahdawi, a Palestinian refugee who is a student at Columbia University in New York City and a legal permanent resident with a Green Card, was arrested on April 14 by ICE agents when he showed up for an interview at an immigration office in Vermont, ostensibly set up to help him obtain U.S. citizenship but which was a trap. His lawyers filed a habeas petition on the day of his detainment and he was released on April 30 after two weeks in prison.

Mohsen Mahdawi a few days after his release from DHS detention. Image credit: HopsonRoad, CC 4.0

These two were by no means the only ones who were arrested in order to be deported. After invoking the Alien Enemies Act and threatening to do the same with the Insurrection Act of 1807, the Trump regime has deported 238 so-called Venezuelan gang members to CECOT, El Salvador’s notorious maximum security prison, possibly defying a federal judge’s orders in doing so. It turns out that many of them had no gang affiliation but were swept up because of tattoos, social media posts, or were prospective asylum applicants and had never broken any law.

Several children, US citizens, have been illegally deported, and Trump has stated that he’d gladly imprison American citizens abroad: “I’m just saying if we had a legal right to do it, I would do it in a heartbeat,” he told reporters on April 2. He was talking about convicted criminals, but without Habeas corpus it could be anybody, you and me, and there’s nothing we could do about it. Just think about this.

So far, federal judges have been pretty good with upholding the rule of law, only to be ignored. But it seems pretty obvious that Rümeysa Öztürk and Mohsen Mahdawi’s court-ordered releases have triggered Stephen Miller’s hissy fit. What’s their next step? Go after the judges?

From Governor Tony Evers’s Twitter account.

If you think this is just a rhetorical question, remember that Milwaukee County Circuit Court Judge Hannah Dugan was arrested in late April for allegedly hindering ICE from detaining an undocumented immigrant who dutifully showed up for a court hearing. The Wisconsin Supreme Court suspended her a few days later.

On the same day “federal authorities arrested former New Mexico Judge Joel Cano and his wife Nancy Cano for allegedly housing a Venezuelan national with reported gang ties”, which caused Trump sycophant and puppy killer Pam Bondi to declare that “No one is above the law”. She should know. She’s currently trying to make it possible for Trump to accept the “gift” of a $400 million “flying palace” from Qatar. Her previous job was lobbying for Qatar.

And let’s not forget the recent arrest of Newark, New Jersey Mayor Ras Baraka. He was peacefully protesting at Delaney Hall, a recently opened ICE detention center operated by Geo Group, a multinational private prison company. Whether it’s legal for ICE to use private prisons is still under dispute. Please visit the Geo Group’s Wikipedia page and witness how black is made to look like white.

Stephen Miller (who is NOT a lawyer) said last Friday that the administration was “actively looking at” suspending habeas corpus and it “depends on whether the courts do the right thing or not.” This is nothing but a thinly disguised threat that they will declare martial law IF the courts don’t do “the right thing”. What is so troubling to me is the deliberate cruelty so clearly displayed by everybody involved with the current regime. Which in turn attracts similar people to sign up for ICE, like those who stormed the United States Capitol on January 6, 2021. They’re all legit now. I find this a tad disturbing.