Lately, the news has been filled with references to habeas corpus. President Donald Trump’s administration is actively considering suspending habeas corpus. Article 1 of the U.S. Constitution provides a right to habeas corpus. As citizens, we all need to understand this right in order to have informed opinions about what is happening in our country.

The New York Times posted an article on May 20, describing habeas corpus. I can’t give a better description, but it is so important for all of us on all sides of the debate to understand, I offer my condensed version: People ask for a writ of habeas corpus when they want to challenge the government’s right to hold someone in jail or elsewhere. The writ is an order to bring the person to court. It is important because it is sometimes the only way to have a court review the reason someone is being held. Is person jailed for a valid reason? Has the jailed person violated a law? Did that person get meaningful hearing to contest the allegations against the person? Or is the person in jail for an arbitrary reason … someone in power does not like the opinions, skin color, religion or nationality of the person being held? Or is the person being held in jail because the person is exercising constitutional rights to challenge the people in power? Has the jailed person been protesting against the administration in power, or running for office against the party in power?

When you consider whether our government should suspend the right of habeas corpus, it is important to remember that administrations come and go. When this administration’s term ends, future administrations can argue that they have the same powers that this administration claimed. If you support the Trump administration, would you be comfortable with someone from the Democratic Party deciding who gets held in jail? Would you be comfortable with having no access to court to challenge your detention? This question is not limited to how we treat undocumented immigrants. In these short five months, people lawfully living here have been held without a claim that they have violated any law. If an administration can decide that one group can be held indefinitely in some obscure location far from family and support, the next administration can do that too. Are you OK with that? If not, speak up.

Habeas corpus in not just a right enshrined in our Constitution, it is so fundamental that it dates back to 1215 and the Magna Carta. This right (indeed all our rights) are meaningless unless we stand up for them.

Dorothy Storrow lives in Gill.