A man who, according to high school classmates, “displayed an intense hatred toward people of color, especially toward Latinos” and in his college years collaborated with punchable neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, is today handcrafting the Trump administration’s immigration platform and setting into motion chaotic policies that stand to devastate immigrant families for years to come.
It’s a fact that any such proposals coming out of this White House will be covered in the fingerprints of ghoulish White House advisor and former Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III aide, Stephen Miller. In his dead-glazed eyes, the more brutal, the more horrific, the more inhumane, the better.
Those ideas have included the Muslim bans, the plan to slash legal immigration by historic numbers, and, most recently, the barbaric “zero tolerance” policy tearing migrants kids from the arms of parents at the border. To date, more than 2,000 kids have been kidnapped by the administration, with no plan set in place to reunite them.
That chaos is also part of the plan. Miller, “an outside White House adviser” told Vanity Fair earlier this month, “actually enjoys seeing those pictures at the border.” This is a white supremacist who classmates say was radicalized as far back as middle school, and now, leaders said in press call earlier this week, he’s imposing his radicalism on America and gleefully tearing thousands of families apart:
According to The New York Times, “… Mr. Miller was instrumental in Mr. Trump’s decision to ratchet up the zero tolerance policy.”
“I don’t think that most Americans understand that a 33-year-old individual with connections to white supremacists is actually crafting policies that are going to literally destroy our country and what we stand for,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal said. She wants him to go, and now. “I have demanded that Stephen Miller be fired. He should not be in the White House.”
Despite his age, Miller’s radicalism stretches back years. “I can't be your friend any more,” Jason Islas says Miller told him during the summer before high school, “because you are Latino.” They had grown up together, and now Miller was disowning him for his ethnicity. Others remembered him as a loner who “used to make fun of the children of Latino and Asian immigrants who did not speak English well.”
Miller’s views, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), became more radical going into college:
During his Duke University days, Miller also came into contact with Richard Spencer, the man credited with coining the term “alt-right” and head of the white nationalist hate group National Policy Institute. Spencer and Miller both attended Duke in the mid-2000s when Miller was an undergraduate and Spencer was pursuing graduate studies. While Miller has denied the claim, Spencer has publicly stated that he considered himself Miller’s mentor.
A claim backed up during the press call by University of Oregon professor Peter Laufer, who was invited to debate immigration with a white nationalist at an event organized collaboratively by Miller and Spencer at Duke University in 2007. Miller may claim “I don’t know her” about Spencer, but Laufer described them as two peas in a pod who “did everything together” in terms of organizing the event, even “things as mundane” as picking him up together at the airport.
“They did everything for the duration of the debate,” Laufer said. “This was not a one-off relationship based on their working closely on the debate and further conversations. My expenses were paid by Duke but did not come in a timely fashion. As a result, I was forced to be in email correspondence over a period of several months which showed the ongoing and close relationship of the two. They were working on immigration policies in direct opposition to the works I was writing.”
Spencer eventually went on to become an outspoken neo-Nazi who helped organize the deadly Charlottesville, Virginia rally last year, while Miller collaborated with anti-Muslim hate groups and is now a senior advisor to the president. In any other recent time in modern U.S. history, this would have disqualified anyone from a top post in the government. In the Trump administration, it’s a plus.
“Stephen Miller has used his position in the Trump White House to push through an anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim agenda that has received praise from hate and extremist groups,” said SPLC’s Heidi Beirich. “His bigoted views have been a driving force behind hateful policies, including the Muslim ban and the repugnant policy that has separated children from their parents at the border.”
“Miller has devoted his life to anti-immigrant, white supremacist policies,” Jayapal said. “He should not be in the White House directing these policies.”
