Congress: Stephen Miller, Trump's man for immigration, has got to go

SCREEN CAPTURE / NBC

White House senior adviser Stephen Miller is credited for Donald Trump's immigration policy proposals.

In the run-up to the 2016 election, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after the Charleston church massacre, according to leaked emails reviewed by Hatewatch.

More than 100 Democratic members of Congress are demanding the firing of senior White House aide Stephen Miller after e-mails that contain white nationalist sentiments he sent as a congressional staffer were leaked. Miller is credited for the racist policies proposed by Donald Trump including the wall with Mexico, the Muslim ban, the deportations of Southeast Asian refugees, the separation of refugee children from their families and doing away with family reunification as a priority.

"A documented white nationalist has no place in any presidential administration, and especially not in such an influential position," the representatives wrote recently in a letter to Donald Trump. "Miller's white supremacist influence on your immigration policy, and it seems like that his perfidious adherence to extremist ideology has shaped your administration in ways that are not yet public."

Last week the leaders of the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus (CAPAC), Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC), and  issued a joint statement calling for Stephen Miller’s resignation, following a report released by the Southern Poverty Law Center documenting multiple instances in which Stephen Miller espoused white nationalist beliefs and vilified communities of color and immigrants in leaked emails to Breitbart.

“It’s clearer than ever that Stephen Miller is a far-right white nationalist with a racist and xenophobic worldview. His beliefs are appalling, indefensible, and completely at odds with public service,” said CPC Co-Chairs Mark Pocan (WI-02) and Pramila Jayapal, CBC Chair Karen Bass (CA-37), CHC Chair Joaquin Castro (TX-20), and CAPAC Chair Judy Chu (CA-27). 

"As documented by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Steven Miller has embedded himself in white nationalist doctrine for years, including promoting racist propaganda from fringe sites like VDARE and InfoWars. And as the chief architect of the Muslim Ban and cruel family separation policies, Stephen Miller has spent the last three years turning his bigotry into policy — with President Trump’s blessing,” read the letter, which was sent Thursday (Nov. 21).

In their letter, the members of Congress link the white nationalist sentiments in the email with policy produced by the White House.

"Stephen Miller's nativism was cited as a major impetus behind your decision to reject a bipartisan compromise immigration bill that would have protected Dreamers due to his belief that the compromise would not reduce enough documented immigration," the authors wrote. "Appallingly, Mr. Miller referred to refugees as 'foreign-born terrorists' in his e-mails, a belief which clearly translated to the unprecedented low ceiling on refugee admissions and even lower actual entrants at a time of the worst refugee crisis in history."

The representatives concluded that they "refuse to tolerate white nationalism and xenophobia in the White House" and that Miller "must be fired immediately."

Common Dreams reported Wednesday that tens of thousands of people have signed petitions demanding Miller's resignation or firing since the Breitbart emails were made public. Civil rights organizations including the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, Never Again Action, and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) have also said Miller must leave the Trump administration.

“We feel like it is up to us to point out the obvious — someone who writes, talks, and governs like a white nationalist is in fact a white nationalist. Stephen Miller is a white nationalist and he has no business serving in the White House,” the Congressmembers added. “As leaders in the Democratic Caucus, representing diverse constituencies who have been targeted by Stephen Miller’s hateful beliefs, we call for his resignation without delay.”

_____________________________________________________________________