The Question Inside Trump's White House Wasn't If They Could Suspend Rights--It Was If They Could Get Away With it [View all]

https://joycevance.substack.com/p/the-question-inside-trumps-white

Joyce Vance
Jun 15, 2026

The headline read “Frustrated by Courts, Trump Weighed Suspending a Constitutional Right.” It teased the story like this: “Secret memos show that the White House debated last year, to a greater degree than previously known, whether to limit habeas corpus rights for undocumented immigrants.”

What follows is an outrageous attempt, even though it ultimately failed, at least for now, to shatter firmly established constitutional rights and protections. In sharing this story, The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan are giving us a peek at their forthcoming book. Leaving aside, for the moment, the inevitable debate over whether journalists have an obligation to report in real time as opposed to holding their most interesting revelations for later publication, their reporting in this story puts together some previously known or suspected information with new details to provide detailed support for understanding this administration as a threat to democratic ideals.

On April 29, 20205, A confidential memo written by White House staff secretary Will Scharf, who is a lawyer, warned Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles that a plan to suspend habeas corpus for unauthorized immigrants was in the works. Haberman and Swan write that it was “careful and lawyerly but amounted to a warning against end-running the rule of law.”

Habeas corpus is the legal right to challenge government-imposed confinement. The Latin phrase roughly translates to “you shall have the body,” and the legal doctrine brings people to court to require the government to justify why an individual is in custody—regardless of citizenship status. In other words, it’s the basic check that prevents government from locking people up indefinitely without sufficient reason. It’s a foundational protection against “disappearing people”. Habeas is the heart of due process.