A constitutional question that arose in the nation’s earliest years is back at the center of a national conversation: Can the government hold or expel people without giving them a day in court?
During President Donald Trump’s second term, his administration expanded travel bans and invoked the Alien Enemies Act to speed deportations, actions that revived a debate over habeas corpus. That phrase, Latin for “you should have the body,” is a legal right that lets people held by the government ask a judge to review whether their detention is lawful.
This Retro Report short doc recalls a 2017 legal fight, when students at Yale Law School helped halt President Trump’s earlier travel ban against people from predominantly Muslim countries. It examines why the issue has re-emerged in 2025.
Using first-person accounts and archival footage of news coverage, the film connects today’s headlines to centuries of tensions between the need for national security and individuals’ right to due process. It explores the way courts act as a check on presidential power, and why habeas corpus remains one of the most important phrases in American law.
View transcript here.