Washington, DC — The messy public breakup of President Trump and former First Buddy Elon Musk has been consuming all of our attention. While the richest and the most powerful men on the planet duke it in the social media sandbox, Stephen Miller – the real power at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue – continues with his plan to purge the nation of immigrants, and anyone he deems undesirable. This week, he led the charge on a host of anti-immigrant announcements and developments – including a new Muslim ban, fresh attacks on Dreamers, and continued militarization of communities.
According to Vanessa Cárdenas, Executive Director of America’s Voice:
“Let’s be clear here – the Brat-Boy spat is a distraction to the real damage done by this Administration. President Trump’s deputy president Stephen Miller has full and unchecked power to attack our communities by going after hard-working mothers and fathers, in dismantling the futures of bright young minds across America, and cherry picking those who he wants in the country – and those he does not. His fervent commitment to ridding the country of immigrants and remaking America in MAGA’s image is one of the only points of consistency in an administration dominated by chaos and cruelty. No matter the costs to American values, communities, families, or our economy, Miller’s purge plan is proceeding at full speed. This is not what Americans voted for.”
Below find key excerpts from recent coverage on Stephen Miller’s spearheaded anti-immigration policies:
- The New Republic column from Greg Sargent, “Stephen Miller Erupts in Fury Over Low Arrests—and Hands Dems a Weapon” noting,
“The potential deportation of people like Carol Hui, which has shocked locals in the Missouri town where she’s lived for 20 years, has inspired a searching debate: What did people think they were voting for when they chose Donald Trump?
…ask yourself this: How many voters understood that when Trump vowed to remove “illegals,” it would drain extensive resources away from fighting crimes like those? The answer has important implications for how Democrats should proceed now … Voters almost certainly didn’t grasp the deeper ideological priorities animating the Trump-Miller worldview … Unlike Miller … majorities are not ideologically hostile to the mere presence of peaceful unauthorized immigrants in this country; they just want the system to work. Yet Miller and Trump see that presence as itself posing a dire public emergency, or even a civilizational one. In this worldview, there can be no desirable pathway to lawful status here for these people because they inherently represent a public threat—they are “poisoning” the nation’s “blood.” Making them legal wouldn’t change that. It would only make the threat they pose more insidious. That’s why Miller is capable of tweeting that the House GOP budget bill is the “most essential piece of legislation” in “the entire Western World,” largely because it ramps up deportation resources. To him, saving the “Western World” rides on deporting all those unauthorized people, including all those “moms.”
All this gets at the deeper reason Miller and Trump are shifting extensive law enforcement resources away from serious crimes into deporting noncriminal immigrants: They simply do see the presence of these people as an extraordinarily urgent national emergency, perhaps more urgent than all those other serious crimes … Miller’s private outbursts reveal a new kind of Achilles’ heel on this issue—time to seize on it, and prosecute the case accordingly.”
- MSNBC column from Hayes Brown: “MSNBC Stephen Miller always planned on deporting immigrant moms” noting,
“In Donald Trump’s second inaugural address, the president renewed a long-standing promise to deport “millions and millions of criminal aliens back to the places from which they came.” That pitch has always been tailored to help listeners hear what they want to hear … But for White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, the most important part was — and has always been — the words “millions and millions.” For Trump’s most influential adviser, the more deportations the better, regardless of criminal status. For Trump’s most influential adviser, the more deportations the better, regardless of criminal status … The scope of Miller’s demands is far beyond the supposed focus on criminals that other Trump officials have been careful to maintain (at least in public).
…The only serious crime committed by many of the immigrants Miller is targeting is the sin of being foreign — and, usually, nonwhite — in America. In his eyes, there’s little to no difference between a drug-dealing gang member and a churchgoing mother who overstayed a visa. All are criminals in Miller’s view, and he has worked hard to warp the immigration system to agree with him. The administration may not hit the millions of deportations that Trump has promised, but Miller will make sure that as many lives are ruined as possible before he’s done.”
- Gabe Ortiz, America’s Voice editor, on the America’s Voice Substack, “Stephen Miller Puts Boot on Neck of ICE Agents: Deport More Parents, Long-Settled Contributors, and Students – Or Else,” noting,
“Shadow President and mass deportation architect-in-chief Stephen Miller reportedly berated immigration officials for not being brutal enough in their mass deportation agenda. Miller demanded they quadruple the number of arrests they’re currently carrying out, Axios reports. Miller’s abrasive tone reportedly left some meeting attendees “feeling their jobs could be in jeopardy if the new targets aren’t reached, two of the sources said.”
…Remember that for Miller, a designated extremist who has been harassing people of color since his youth, it’s all just a numbers game. And because he sees immigrants only as numbers, he wants us to see them only as numbers and not as real people. He wants us to forget that he’s detaining and kicking out long-settled contributors and beloved community members (certainly something he can’t relate to), hardworking moms and dads critical to our economy, Dreamers and college students who are key to our future potential, and even U.S. citizen children. Because the courts keep ruling against some of the administration’s agenda, Miller’s only going to triple down on picking on immigrants. And when ICE agents help him with that, they won’t be keeping America safe, they’ll just be keeping their own jobs safe.”
