Stephen Miller: ‘Trump’s brain’ behind migration crackdown

WASHINGTON: For Stephen Miller, the architect of US President Donald Trump’s hard-line migration policy, the protests in Los Angeles were nothing less than the front line of a “fight to save civilisation itself.”

Read more: Trump blames ‘insurrectionists’ for Los Angeles unrest

Hyper-loyalist Miller, 39, has carved out a niche as Trump’s most powerful and hawkish advisor on the Republican’s signature issue of immigration.

A combative presence on the White House driveway, Miller is frequently rolled out in public to double down on the president’s comments in front of the cameras and frequently spars with reporters.

But the sharp-suited advisor’s comments on Los Angeles – which echo hard-right talking points about the decline of the West as it faces an “invasion” of migrants –underscored that the topic is not just political for him, but existential.

‘A FIGHT TO SAVE CIVILISATION’

His fingerprints have been all over the White House’s unprecedented assertion of its right to use presidential power to pursue its agenda, often using centuries-old or rarely cited laws to deport migrants.

And Miller, who is formally Trump’s Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy and Homeland Security Advisor, is at the sharp end of things too.

It was Miller who, according to the Wall Street Journal, issued US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) with orders in May to step up its work after the number of daily deportations under Trump fell below those carried out by Joe Biden’s administration last year.

Those orders led to the immigration raids on a Home Depot in Los Angeles that triggered clashes between protesters and federal agents – and Trump’s decision to send in thousands of troops.

Miller, who grew up in LA’s Santa Monica, has since taken to social media to battle Democrats who accuse Trump of authoritarianism.

“We’ve been saying for years this is a fight to save civilisation. Anyone with eyes can see that now,” Miller said on X on Sunday.

A few days earlier, he set out his right-wing worldview more explicitly as he pushed for Trump’s new “big, beautiful” spending bill, which contains provisions for migration.

“We will be debating these matters over the ruins of the West if we don’t control migration,” he wrote on June 4.

Critics say such comments echo the far-right “replacement theory” about migration undermining Western society.

Indeed, during Trump’s first term, Miller’s hard-line stance made him something of an outlier.

MUSLIM TRAVEL BAN ARCHITECT

As a young firebrand, Miller was one of the architects of the so-called “Muslim travel bans” in Trump’s first presidency, which later ran into legal difficulties after they were poorly drafted.

Miller largely avoided the chaotic feuding that engulfed Trump’s first White House, resulting in somewhat more moderate voices winning out on immigration policies.

Miller, however, remained loyal, and stuck by his boss even as Trump’s first term ended in the disgrace of the US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021.

In the second Trump administration, Miller’s views have become mainstream.

“I call Stephen ‘Trump’s brain,'” Republican former House speaker Kevin McCarthy told the New York Times just before Trump’s inauguration in January.

Miller was the driving force in particular behind the use of an obscure 200-year-old wartime law to deport undocumented migrants — and a vocal defender when that crackdown saw a man wrongly deported to El Salvador.

He also outraged Democrats when he said on May 9 that the White House was “looking into” suspending habeas corpus, which would prevent migrants targeted for mass deportations to appeal for their right to appear in court.

Miller recently claimed a media scalp when broadcaster ABC dropped a veteran correspondent, Terry Moran, who described the Trump aide as a “world-class hater” in a late-night social media screed.

DIVIDED BETWEEN TRUMP AND MUSK

One blip, however, came when Miller and his wife Katie found themselves caught up in the explosive split between Trump and his billionaire advisor Elon Musk.

Katie Miller had been a senior advisor and spokeswoman in Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) – and was reportedly set to leave and work for Musk’s companies when he departed the White House. But the couple now find themselves, professionally speaking, on opposite sides of the break-up between the world’s richest person and its most powerful.