Haberman: Threat to nix habeas corpus just a way to ‘intimidate courts,’ ‘scare migrants’

Journalist Maggie Haberman said the Trump administration’s proposal to nix habeas corpus is an attempt to sway the courts and strike fear into undocumented immigrants. 

“Some of this might just be fear. A, it’s a way to intimidate the courts, which we have seen Trump and Stephen Miller do, a lot of, they’ve been criticizing judges routinely and repeatedly,” Haberman said during a Friday evening appearance on CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlan Collins.”

“It also might be to scare migrants and to get migrants to leave,” she added.

The constitutional statute ensures individuals who are detained are brought before a judge or into court to secure the person's release unless lawful grounds are shown for their detention.

The White House has argued that its large-scale deportation measures are authorized under the Aliens and Enemies Act, an 18th-century wartime authority used to support rapid removals for migrants in the event of an invasion.

“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,” White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said Friday.

“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,” he continued.

Haberman and various judges have said the Trump administration is misinterpreting the law and overreaching their authority.

“A number of judges, including a Trump-appointed judge from his first term, have already said that they are misreading, they are overstretching the statute on the Alien Enemies Act, which is what they have used for these controversial deportations,” Haberman told Collins.