Stephen Miller
Stephen Millers appointment as deputy chief of staff of policy is a direct threat to American Muslims. Miller’s trajectory into shaping some of the most divisive and discriminatory policies of the Trump administration can be traced to his formative years, where he actively engaged with far-right hate groups and championed anti-Muslim ideologies. During his time at Duke University, Miller worked with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, an organization designated as an anti-Muslim hate group. While at Duke, he organized events like “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week,” a campaign designed to stoke fear and spread misinformation about Islam and Muslim communities.
Miller also served as the first national coordinator of the Freedom Center’s “Terrorism Awareness Project” The project was explicitly aimed at raising alarm over what Miller described as “the Islamic jihad and the terrorist threat” while advocating for the defense of “America and the civilization of the West.” These early efforts reflect Miller’s foundational commitment to framing Islam and Muslims as existential threats, a perspective that would later permeate his policymaking in the Trump administration.
As a senior White House adviser, Miller’s influence was central to the creation and implementation of the Muslim travel ban, a policy that targeted seven Muslim-majority countries and was widely condemned as discriminatory and unconstitutional. This ban, coupled with his broader efforts to stigmatize Muslim communities, epitomized Miller’s long-standing alignment with nationalist and exclusionary ideologies.
Miller’s documented history with hate groups further came to light through hundreds of leaked emails obtained by a former white nationalist working for Breitbart News. These emails revealed Miller’s promotion of white nationalist websites and his use of far-right sources to shape media narratives about immigration and communities of color. His rhetoric consistently framed Muslims and immigrants as threats, and he referred to refugees as “foreign-born terrorists,” a belief that directly influenced unprecedented restrictions on refugee admissions during one of the worst global refugee crises in history.
Miller’s nativist ideology also led him to reject bipartisan immigration compromises, such as one that would have protected Dreamers, arguing that it did not sufficiently curtail documented immigration. During a 2024 Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden Miller told the crowd that, “your salvation is at hand,” after what he cast as “decades of abuse that has been heaped upon the good people of this nation — their jobs looted and stolen from them and shipped to Mexico, Asia and foreign countries. The lives of their loved ones ripped away from them by illegal aliens, criminal gangs and thugs who don’t belong in this country.”
His admiration for figures like President Calvin Coolidge, who championed the racially exclusionary 1924 Immigration Act, further underscores his commitment to policies rooted in racial and religious exclusion.
Twenty-five Jewish Democratic members of Congress, citing these leaked emails and Miller’s documented promotion of white nationalist ideologies, called for his removal from the administration. They condemned his dissemination of extremist narratives and the profound harm caused by the policies he shaped, which disproportionately targeted Muslims, refugees, and other marginalized communities.
Stephen Miller’s legacy is a stark reminder of how deeply entrenched hate and prejudice can shape governance. From his early efforts on campus to his tenure in the White House, Miller’s work has consistently advanced a narrative of fear and exclusion, leaving a lasting impact on American immigration policy and exacerbating racial and religious divisions in the nation. The potential of Miller’s influence on the administration already available paints a disturbing picture of the systemic entrenchment of Islamophobia and racial discrimination under his guidance.
