Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire inadvertently suggested President Donald Trump can suspend habeas corpus to detain illegal aliens while trying to dunk on Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.
Hassan’s farcical self-own unfolded Tuesday during a hearing of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.
The purpose of the hearing was to discuss DHS’s fiscal year 2026 budget proposal.
Instead of addressing the budget, Hassan used the occasion as an opportunity to grill Noem about legal definitions.
“What is habeas corpus?” the senator, an attorney, asked the DHS boss.
Noem responded, “Habeas corpus is a constitutional right that the president has to be able to remove people from this country.”
“Excuse me, that’s — that’s incorrect,” Hassan interjected.
“Habeas corpus is the legal principle that requires — requires — that the government provide a public reason for detaining and imprisoning people,” the senator explained.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem incorrectly responded to a lawmaker’s question on the definition of habeas corpus during a Senate committee hearing on her department’s budget. https://t.co/oWHetV493j pic.twitter.com/gxBnz1oD6i
— ABC News (@ABC) May 21, 2025
Should Trump suspend habeas corpus exactly the same way Lincoln did?
Hassan continued: “If not for that protection, the government could simply arrest people, including American citizens, and hold them indefinitely for no reason.”
“Habeas corpus is the foundational right that separates free societies, like America, from police states, like North Korea. As a senator from the ‘Live Free or Die’ state, this matters a lot to me and my constituents and to all Americans,” she added.
Hassan followed up by asking, “Secretary Noem, do you support the core protection that habeas corpus provides — that the government must provide a public reason in order to detain and imprison someone?”
“I support habeas corpus,” Noem replied. “I also recognize that the president of the United States has the authority under the Constitution to decide if it should be suspended or not.”
Hassan again interrupted Noem, saying, “It has never been done. It has never been done without approval of Congress. Even Abraham Lincoln got retroactive approval from Congress.”
Beginning in 1861, former President Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus multiple times to detain Confederate soldiers and spies, saying it was necessary to protect the Union from sabotage.
That same year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Lincoln lacked the authority to suspend habeas corpus.
But 22 months later, Congress formalized Lincoln’s order by passing the Habeas Corpus Suspension Act in 1863.
This issue is surfacing again because White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said the Trump administration was “actively” considering suspending habeas corpus to detain (and eventually deport) illegal aliens.
“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,” Miller told reporters on May 9, per CBS News.
In trying to dunk on Noem by quibbling over a legal definition, Maggie Hassan accidentally suggested that Trump may be able to suspend habeas after all.
Unvetted armies of migrants illegally crossing the U.S. border while waving foreign flags is an invasion.
*NEW VIDEO* FOX News sources capture stunning new video of hundreds more of migrants making their way on top of trains, some waving a Venezuelan flag, en route to the US border in Eagle Pass, TX @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/LHsH79xG63
— Griff Jenkins (@GriffJenkins) September 26, 2023
Illegal Migrants scaling the US Mexico Border in California
Notice how they climb with ladders so that more illegal migrants can easily cross into America. Meet your new neighbors, they’re voting Kamala Harris. pic.twitter.com/BABNbafL1l
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) October 30, 2024
Pursuant to Title 8, Section 1325 of the U.S. Code (8 USC 1325), migrants who are caught illegally crossing the border are subject to arrest, detention, and removal from the United States by the Department of Homeland Security.
It doesn’t matter if DHS Secretary Noem can’t recite the definition of “habeas corpus.” She knows her job, which is to detain and remove foreign invaders who shamelessly flout U.S. immigration laws.
If only Maggie Hassan understood that her job is to represent her constituents — not to champion foreign nationals who have no respect for U.S. sovereignty or its laws.
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