Noem was right
The Constitution vested Lincoln, as it does all Presidents, with broad authority to respond to an existential emergency. But Trump has yet to show that the nation faces one. The Supreme Court has not yet addressed the question of whether a President can suspend the writ of habeas corpus, nor what qualifies as a “rebellion or invasion.” During the Civil War, the Supreme Court never stopped Lincoln, and no President has since tried to suspend habeas on his own. Should the Trump White House take that fateful step, claiming that illegal immigration amounts to an invasion, the Court will also have to decide whether the judiciary can overturn his decision. But it should not rely on Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War as proof that only Congress can suspend habeas corpus.