For the past three months, being a politics editor at The Conversation – and I’m sure at many other news organizations – has felt like a crash course in constitutional law. There are currently 208 legal challenges to Trump administration actions, according to one site tracking them. We’re spending a lot of time delving into different cases, publishing stories to help you understand both the context and implications of various administration actions and policies, a huge portion of which have ended up in court.

This week, we looked at a key legal concept: habeas corpus.

“In some parts of the world, a person may be secreted away or imprisoned by the government without any advanced notification of wrongdoing or chance to make a defense,” writes Andrea Seielstad, a law professor at the University of Dayton. “This has not been lawful in the United States from its very inception, or in many other countries where the rule of law and respect for individual civil rights are paramount.”

That’s because the legal doctrine of “habeas corpus,” a Latin phrase that has its American roots in English law that dates to as early as the 12th century, stands as a barrier to unlawful arrest.

Seielstad writes that “in its essence, habeas corpus protects any person, whether citizen or not, from being illegally confined.” And that’s why, she says, habeas corpus “is front and center right now in many of the lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s arrest and deportation of noncitizen students, scholars, humanitarian refugees and others.”

Also in this week’s politics news:

Naomi Schalit

Senior Editor, Politics + Democracy
Two Latin words – ‘habeas corpus’ – protect any person, whether citizen or not, from being illegally confined. deepblue4you, iStock / Getty Images Plus

Habeas corpus: A thousand-year-old legal principle for defending rights that’s getting a workout under the Trump administration

Andrea Seielstad, University of Dayton

Habeas corpus – a Latin phrase meaning ‘you shall have the body’ – protects any person, whether citizen or not, from being illegally confined. It’s a crucial element of US law.
Neither party – Democrats nor Republicans – is doing a better job at fixing crime. Carl Ballou - iStock/Getty Images Plus

Crime is nonpartisan and the blame game on crime in cities is wrong – on both sides

Justin de Benedictis-Kessner, Harvard Kennedy School; Christopher S. Warshaw, George Washington University

Mayors from the Democratic Party aren’t making cities any more – or less – dangerous than mayors from the Republican Party.
The detention of noncitizen university students after their Palestinian rights activism raises questions about the limits of free speech. Rob Dobi/Moment/Getty Images

Lawful permanent residents like Mahmoud Khalil have a right to freedom of speech – but does that protect them from deportation?

Erin Corcoran, University of Notre Dame

The Trump administration says it can deport noncitizen students that create foreign security threats. The Supreme Court might ultimately decide the limits of these residents’ free speech.

Some politicians who share harmful information are rewarded with more clicks, study finds

Yu-Ru Lin, University of Pittsburgh

A study of US state legislators found that posting misinformation online was a winning strategy for boosting a politician’s visibility – but not for Democrats.

Justice Department lawyers work for justice and the Constitution – not the White House

Cassandra Burke Robertson, Case Western Reserve University

Some Department of Justice attorneys have recently been fired or have resigned, refusing to follow directives from the Trump administration that they felt violated the law, legal ethics or both.

Memes and conflict: Study shows surge of imagery and fakes can precede international and political violence

Tim Weninger, University of Notre Dame; Ernesto Verdeja, University of Notre Dame

Visual content, including manipulated images, is a staple of propaganda and political messaging. AI analysis shows that a surge of these memes can precede the outbreak of wide-scale violence.

Secretary of defense has massive responsibilities for troops, weapons, advising the president and working with Congress

Evelyn Farkas, Arizona State University

As Pete Hegseth has found, leading the US Defense Department is a big job, affecting Americans’ security at home and abroad and overseeing huge numbers of people and immense amounts of money.