Trump Brings Back White Nationalist Stephen Miller for Second Term
Donald Trump is handing over an immense level of power to Stephen Miller this time around.
A former Trump staffer and renowned nativist is about to make a comeback at the top of Donald Trumpâs policy machine.
In the coming days, Trump is expected to announce the appointment of Stephen Miller to serve as White House deputy chief of staff for policy, reported CNN.
Miller previously served as the senior adviser for policy and White House director of speechwriting under Trumpâs first term, and his appointment comes as little surprise: The 39-year-old was expectedâsince at least the beginning of the yearâto reenter the West Wing as the leading expert on âAmerica Firstâ immigration policy.
The far-right politico has made a name for himself for his vicious anti-immigrant policies, which include proposals to build mass deportation camps and deploy the military and the national guard to seal the border, promising a forthcoming reality of âlarge-scale raidsâ and âthroughput facilities.â
Heâs long been seen as one of the most apparent and rigid ties between Trump and the white nationalist agenda. Miller, a mentee of Trumpâs former chief strategist Steve Bannon, has had a profound impact on the president-electâs language and policy on immigration, despite entering Trumpworld with little policy or legal expertise. He was the architect of Trumpâs first Muslim travel ban and has been a vocal proponent of family separation at the U.S. border, as well as limiting citizenship for legal immigrants. During his time in Trumpâs first term, leaked emails revealed that he promoted white nationalist articles and books, especially on the idea that non-white people are replacing white people.
His rhetoric has been roundly condemnedâincluding by his uncle, Dr. David S. Glosser, who in a scathing 2018 piece for Politico Magazine condemned his far-right relative as a hypocrite for drafting policy that would have prevented their own family from seeking refuge on Americaâs shores in the twentieth century.
âNo matter what opinion is held about immigration, any government that specifically enacts law or policy on that basis must be recognized as a threat to all of us,â Glosser wrote. âLaws bereft of justice are the gateway to tyranny. Today others may be the target, but tomorrow it might just as easily be you or me.â
Miller has also been on the front lines of other components of Trumpâs agenda, including attacks on LGBTQ rights and abortion access. In May, Miller (under the helm of America First Legal) joined a legal effort by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and several professors at the University of Texas at Austin that aimed to dismantle Title IX, arguing that the federal civil rights lawâwhich protects against sexual or gender-based discrimination in educationâviolated the stateâs âsovereign interest.â
According to a legal filing, that included limiting schoolsâ abilities to punish students who take time off to get an abortion, even if that abortion was performed out of state.
Miller sided with the professors that the school should be allowed to punish students who take time off to get an abortion, even if that abortion is performed out of state, while weirdly diminishing Title IX as a pronoun-fueled bathroom battle that would âforce girls in every public school in America to share restrooms, locker rooms, and private facilities with men.â