Since the election, Donald Trump has wasted no time appointing his problematic faves to various government positions, most of which do not require Senate confirmation — like putting anti-vaccine crusader and fluoride enemy No. 1 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in charge of public-health agencies and announcing a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) for his best bud Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head up. He’s also tapped his former speechwriter and immigration adviser Stephen Miller as deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser.
You may remember Miller from Trump’s first term, where he helped shape his most virulently xenophobic diatribes and border policies. Now, he will likely be given even more leeway to unleash his white-supremacist worldview on the country. As we hunker down for what J.D. Vance has ruled “another fantastic pick” by Trump, here is a brief refresher on the worst things Miller did the first time around.
He was behind Trump’s child-separation policy, Muslim ban, and anti-refugee measures.
Miller has been described as the “architect” of Trump’s 2017 Muslim ban, which saw the president attempt to block travelers and refugees from a handful of Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States. The same year, he was credited with “single-handedly” reducing the U.S.’s refugee cap to a record low.
Based on reports from inside the White House, Miller was also the most bullish champion of the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, which separated more than 5,000 children from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border in 2018. The policy, ostensibly designed to discourage illegal crossings, created an appalling human-rights crisis at the border, where staffers described traumatized children at risk of suicide, audio emerged of young kids sobbing and screaming for their parents, and infamous photos showed children being kept in cages. Amid public outcry, Miller proudly told the New York Times that separating families was “a simple decision by the administration to have a zero-tolerance policy for illegal entry, period.” Meanwhile, a White House adviser told Vanity Fair that Miller “actually enjoys seeing those pictures at the border.”
Miller helped Trump use fearmongering speeches to push his agenda.
As Trump’s speechwriter, it’s likely that Miller helped pen a great part of what the president said throughout his first term. But there are certain screeds we know he had a particularly large say in — like Trump’s 2017 inaugural speech, where he infamously warned that the “American carnage” caused by gangs and drugs will come to an end, or the 2019 Oval Office address where he referred to immigrants as “vicious coyotes.” Miller also prepared the remarks Trump delivered on January 6, 2020, shortly before the people listening to that speech stormed the U.S. Capitol.
He’s been gearing up to pick up where he left off.
After Trump left office, Miller channeled all his nativist energy into an advisory group called America First Legal, which he described as the right’s “long-awaited answer to the ACLU.” (To give you an idea of what this organization does, one of its class-action lawsuits quoted Martin Luther King Jr. while accusing the government of discriminating against white people.) AFL was also a major contributor to Project 2025, Trump’s suspected plan for the first year of his presidency — and one he disingenuously distanced himself from on the campaign trail.
Last year, Miller told the New York Times that “Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown.” During Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally the week before the election, he was practically salivating at the chance to carry out his campaign promises of mass deportation. “America is for Americans and Americans only,” he outright stated, adding that “criminal gangs cannot just cross our border and rape and murder with impunity.”
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