No, Immigration Is Not An “Invasion”—And It Doesn’t Justify Suspending Habeas Corpus

the power grabs are becoming more and more dangerous

By any rational reading of the Constitution, the Trump administration’s claim that unauthorized immigration across the southern border constitutes an “invasion”—and therefore justifies suspending habeas corpus—is not just legally absurd. It’s a dangerous distortion of American law, history, and democratic norms.

And yet perhaps the most dangerous person in America, Stephen Miller, views it as just another act on another day. He even went on to say that due process is a “privilege” that he plans to deny immigrants. It is abundantly clear that this nightmarish regime has a very different definition of privilege than the rest of us.

Let’s be clear: habeas corpus is not some technical procedural right. It is one of the most fundamental protections in our constitutional system, enshrined to prevent the government from detaining people indefinitely without cause or judicial oversight. The Founders recognized its importance by embedding it directly into the body of the Constitution, not merely in the Bill of Rights. It may only be suspended “when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.” That language isn’t vague. It was deliberately chosen to limit the government’s ability to strip people of their liberty.

The administration’s effort to recast immigration as an “invasion” stretches this language beyond all recognition. An invasion, in any reasonable or historical sense, refers to a hostile military incursion—foreign armies breaching national borders with weapons, intent on conquest or destruction. What we are witnessing on the southern border is nothing of the sort. Migrants, many of them families and asylum seekers fleeing violence and poverty, are not invading forces. They are unarmed civilians navigating a civil immigration system.

Immigration enforcement, for all its complexity and controversy, is not a matter of war powers. It’s a civil administrative function, governed by immigration statutes and adjudicated in civil courts. The government’s attempt to equate this with a military emergency is a political maneuver, not a legal justification. It’s a transparent effort to inflame public fear and override constitutional safeguards. At bottom, it is yet another other effort to impose white supremacy.

Even if one were to accept the administration’s twisted definition of invasion, the Constitution still requires that suspending habeas corpus be necessary for “public safety.” That threshold is nowhere near being met. The idea that the presence of undocumented immigrants—who statistically commit crimes at lower rates than U.S. citizens—poses a national security emergency justifying the indefinite detention of thousands of people without access to courts is not just unsupported by data; it is an affront to the very notion of due process.

This isn’t the first time the U.S. government has abused its powers under the guise of national security. From Lincoln’s Civil War-era suspension of habeas corpus to the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, history offers painful lessons about what happens when fear eclipses constitutional restraint. The Supreme Court has repeatedly made clear that habeas corpus cannot be suspended when there exist civilian courts.

This isn’t merely a debate about legal semantics. It’s a test of whether we still believe in constitutional limits and individual rights, or whether we’re willing to discard them based on political convenience and manufactured threats. If the executive branch can define “invasion” at will and use it to detain people indefinitely without trial, then the rule of law becomes whatever the president says it is.

The logical next step is militarizing the nation’s entire law enforcement apparatus in his nefarious service. We have to fight back now. Newark was a start. We need many more.

No, immigration is not an invasion. And no, it does not justify suspending one of the oldest and most vital protections in our legal tradition. Americans across the political spectrum should reject this unconstitutional power grab for what it is: a cynical attack on liberty masquerading as national defense. Before things worsen.