Weekly Update: 5/13/2025

The Threat to Democracy Index remains steady this week, unchanged since March 18. Like the previous several weeks, democratic backsliding might be described as deepening but not escalating. In other words, the last week has brought new examples of why the index remains elevated, such as transforming Voice of America into a partisan state media or threatening to arrest Democratic congresspersons for exercising oversight of an ICE facility. Still, these latest examples are consistent with the concerns already factored into the index.

While the index score has not changed, we at the PJLC have paid particular attention to two news stories this week that could lead to movement of the score. Both involve eliminating obstacles to mass deportations, which would be a significant factor in moving the Scapegoating and Persecution of Targeted “Out-Groups” criteria from a score of 6 to a score of 7. Currently, there are two main obstacles to mass deportations, (1) the scale of arrests required to deport millions of people, and (2) providing millions of people with a fair hearing before removal. But two news stories this week suggest that the Trump administration is looking for ways around both those obstacles.

The first story is that the Tennesse Highway Patrol arrested over one hundred people in one day for civil immigration violations. This, combined with Florida's recent use of state law enforcement agents to arrest over one thousand migrants in a single week suggest that state law enforcement agencies in states sympathetic to mass deportations will be able to help with the scale of arrests needed. While there has been talk about using state resources in addition to federal resources in order to arrest millions of people, the last few weeks have seen that start to happen in practice.

The second story is that Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, publicly stated that President Trump is considering suspending the writ of habeas corpus. Broadly, the writ of habeas corpus is the right of a person who has been taken into government custody to challenge the lawfulness or their detention. The U.S. Constitution says in Article 1 that "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." Though this constitutional clause appears in Article 1, and so it would seem that only Congress can suspend habeas corpus, it was suspended by Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War (though Congress later approved of the suspension) and no court has ever squarely ruled that a president cannot suspend habeas corpus through executive order.

Generally, the application of the writ of habeas corpus to migrants is a complicated legal issue. However, the U.S. Supreme Court recently ordered that migrants at risk of deportation under the Alien Enemies Act could only challenge their removal by filing a writ of habeas corpus. As a result, suspending the writ of habeas corpus would eliminate the only avenue the Supreme Court has left for migrants to challenge their removal under the Alien Enemies Act and could serve as an excuse for bypassing immigration courts in order to engage in mass deportations without hearings.

At this point, the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus remains only talk and is legally dubious. However, this week's news raises clear concerns that mass deportations are on the horizon, at least in states dominated by MAGA. That may be the next increase in the Threat to Democracy Index score.