White House weighed suspending habeas corpus rights for undocumented immigrants: Book
The leaked memo says White House lawyers blocked the plan after staff warned it could trigger a major constitutional battle.
- Leaked memos reveal White House adviser Stephen Miller led a push to suspend habeas corpus as part of the administration's immigration crackdown. White House staff secretary Will Scharf warned the move would trigger a major constitutional battle in an April 29, 2025, memo to chief of staff Susie Wiles.
- Seeking to bypass Supreme Court rulings requiring deportation hearings, Miller argued the Constitution permits suspending habeas corpus during an "invasion." Scharf countered that only Congress possesses this authority, tracing the right's origins to the American Revolution.
- Scharf's memo emphasized that habeas corpus prevents "governmental actors from detaining, imprisoning or executing individuals arbitrarily." He warned courts have historically interfered with this right only in the "direst of circumstances."
- These documents provide a significant window into how far the administration was willing to go in "sidelining the courts" during its immigration crackdown. Ultimately, the controversial plans were blocked by Trump's own lawyers, demonstrating internal resistance to executive power expansion.
18 Articles
18 Articles
That Time Trump Insiders Plotted To Suspend Habeas Corpus
According to Haberman and Swan, who don't resemble scoop-hungry reporters like Woodward and Bernstein in the least, last spring, Will Scharf, an arch-conservative lawyer serving as the White House staff secretary, wrote a secret memo to the chief of staff that reflected the growing West Wing unease over one of the extreme measures being advocated by Stephen Miller, the nutjob neo-Nazi behind Trump's insane deportation campaign Dated April 29, 20…
Expert taken aback as Trump aides rejected 'outrageous' habeas corpus proposal
A legal expert was taken aback on Monday by reporting that revealed how Trump administration insiders pushed back on an extreme attempt to suspend habeas corpus. Joyce Vance, a former federal prosecutor, argued in a new Substack essay that new reporting from Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times about an administration lawyer named Will Scharf who drafted a confidential memo outlining reasons why suspending habeas corpus would …
Voldemort Pushed Trump To Suspend Habeas Corpus
The New York Times reports: Last spring, Will Scharf, an arch-conservative lawyer serving as the White House staff secretary, wrote a secret memo to the chief of staff that reflected growing unease in the West Wing about one of the extreme measures being weighed by Stephen Miller, the powerful adviser driving President Trump’s deportation campaign. Dated April 29, 2025, and stamped “confidential,” the memo was careful and lawyerly but amounted t…
Chicago Tribune
Frustrated by courts, Trump weighed suspending a constitutional right
The second Trump White House was deliberating an explosive new claim of presidential power: the suspension of habeas rights for unauthorized immigrants.
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