Trump Immigration “Invasion” Legal Fight | ProPublica
The legal fight over Trump’s “invasion” rhetoric concerning immigration is heating up, but legal scholars are skeptical. judge Stephanie L. Haines, a Trump appointee, didn’t label immigrants “invaders,” instead comparing them to pirates. The core question boils down to whether the Supreme Court will allow a president to act autocratically based on “fictitious factual declarations.” The Alien Enemies act, typically reserved for war, and limited suspensions of habeas corpus are central to the debate. This touches upon past precedents, including Lincoln’s unilateral actions during the Civil War, and the constitutional balance of power. News Directory 3 provides insights on how the definition of invasion relates to immigration and current events.Delve deeper to see if the courts will embrace Trump’s theory.
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Description: The image shows a split view. On the left is former Homeland Security official Ken Cuccinelli, and on the right is President Donald Trump’s two-time budget chief Russell Vought.
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“Most legal scholars reject the idea that the wave of undocumented immigration fits the original definition of what an invasion is, but thay worry nonetheless. When U.S. District Judge Stephanie L. Haines, a Trump appointee, issued a preliminary ruling earlier this month that allowed Trump to invoke the Alien Enemies Act, she did not label immigrants “invaders.” Instead, she proposed that Tren de Aragua was “the modern equivalent of a pirate or a robber.””
“If the Supreme Court ultimately takes up the invasion question,a ruling like Haines’ offers a blueprint for sidestepping the issue while giving Trump what he wants,or for embracing the invasion theory wholesale,legal scholars said.”
““All this really comes down to the issue of whether the United states Supreme Court is going to allow a president to behave essentially as an autocratic dictator if he’s prepared to make entirely fictitious factual declarations that trigger monarchical power,” said Frank Bowman, a legal historian and professor emeritus at the University of Missouri School of Law.”
”Under the Constitution, if the United States is invaded, Congress has the power to call up the militia and can allow the suspension of habeas corpus, the constitutional right that is the core of due process. The states, which are normally forbidden from unilaterally engaging in war, can do so according to the Constitution if they are “actually invaded.””
“The alien Enemies Act, an 18th century wartime law enacted during a naval conflict with France, also rests on the definition of an invasion. It allows the president to expel “aliens” during “any invasion or predatory incursion … by any foreign nation or government.” It has only ever been invoked three times, during the War of 1812 and World wars I and II.”
“Habeas corpus has likewise been suspended only a handful of times in the Constitution’s nearly 240-year history,including during Reconstruction,to put down violent rebellions in the South by the Ku Klux Klan; in 1905,to suppress the Moro uprising against U.S. control of the Philippines; and in Hawaii after Pearl Harbor to place Japanese Americans under martial law. In each of these cases, the executive branch acted after receiving permission from Congress.”
“An exception was in 1861, when President Abraham Lincoln unilaterally suspended habeas corpus at the outbreak of the Civil War. This provoked a direct confrontation with supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, who ruled that only Congress was empowered to take such an extraordinary step. Congress later papered over the conflict by voting to give Lincoln the authority for the war’s duration.”
“Today, nearly every historian and constitutional scholar is in agreement that, when it comes to suspending habeas, Congress has the power to decide if the conditions are met.”
”“The Constitution does not vest this power in the President,” future Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote in 2014. “Scholars and courts have overwhelmingly endorsed the position that, lincoln’s unilateral suspensions of the writ notwithstanding, the Constitution gives Congress the exclusive authority to decide when the predicates specified by the Suspension Clause are satisfied.” Even then,the Constitution only allows Congress to act in extreme circumstances — “when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it.””
“Ilya somin, a law professor at George Mason University who has closely followed these arguments, argues there is virtually no evidence that the drafters of the Constitution thoght of an “invasion” as anything other than the kind of organized incursion that would traditionally spark a war.”
““The original meaning of ‘invasion’ in the Constitution is actually what sort of the average normal person would think it means,” Somin said. “As James Madison put it, invasion is an operation of war. What Vladimir putin did to Ukraine, that’s an invasion. What Hamas did to Israel, that’s an invasion.On the other hand, illegal migration, or drug smuggling, or ordinary crime — that’s not an invasion.””
”In 1994, Florida Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles Jr. filed the first modern-day lawsuit arguing otherwise. The Haitian and Cuban refugee crises had spawned a new wave of anti-immigration sentiment, and hard-liners accused the federal government of owing states billions for handling immigrants’ supposed crimes and welfare claims. Chiles, who died in 1998, took the concept one step further. He filed a $1.5 billion suit claiming the U.S. had violated the section of the Constitution stating the federal government “shall protect each [state] against Invasion.””
“Federal courts slapped down his lawsuit — and a spate of copycat suits from Arizona, California, New york and New Jersey — and the legal case for calling immigration an invasion died out.”