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US President Donald Trump has removed White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and appointed his longtime adviser Stephen Miller, known for his hardline stance on immigration, as her replacement on Friday.
Miller played a key role in formulating and implementing some of Trump’s most controversial policies. His appointment following the Republicans’ defeat in the midterm elections signals that Trump remains committed to his previous political positions.
The Democratic Party has won control of both chambers of the US Congress in the midterm elections. This will allow Democrats to investigate Miller’s role in the Trump administration. The new Congress will begin its work in January next year.
The 41-year-old Miller is one of Trump’s most staunch supporters. He is widely regarded as one of the key architects behind plans to deport large numbers of immigrants from the United States.
In a post on his social media platform Truth Social, Trump described Miller as “one of his most trusted advisers”. Miller will replace Wiles from next Monday.
### Conservative politics from the beginning
Stephen Miller became involved in conservative politics long before he became close to Trump.
While attending Santa Monica High School in California, Miller criticised the school’s liberal policies on local radio programmes.
At Duke University in North Carolina, Miller led the conservative student organisation Duke Conservative Union. During that period, he strongly defended three students accused of rape.
After graduating, Miller moved to Washington, DC, where he worked as an aide to Republican Congressman and Senator Jeff Sessions.
In January 2016, Miller joined Trump’s presidential election campaign. He played an important role in shaping Trump’s speeches and aggressive political rhetoric.
In a 2017 interview with the Associated Press (AP), former Trump adviser Steve Bannon said, “I think there was a natural bond between the two from the beginning. Miller helped shape Trump’s political messaging.”
### Role during Trump’s first term
After Trump was elected president for the first time, Miller became his adviser and speechwriter.
Miller played an influential role in shaping Trump’s hardline immigration policies. He promoted these policies as an effort to protect “Western civilisation”.
At the time, Democratic lawmakers accused Miller of promoting white nationalist rhetoric and ideology.
In 2019, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a nonprofit legal advocacy organisation working on civil rights issues in the United States, published a collection of emails. The emails contained evidence of Miller’s support for white nationalist websites and ideology. Following the revelations, Democratic lawmakers called for his removal from the White House.
In a 2020 statement, Congressman Joaquin Castro said, “The Trump administration has knowingly placed a white nationalist and white supremacist in a powerful policymaking position in the federal government. This is completely unacceptable.”
Miller was also believed to have played a role in introducing the ‘zero-tolerance’ policy at the US border in 2018. Under the Justice Department policy, nearly all adults entering the United States without proper documentation were to be arrested.
As a result, many people were separated from their families. Under the policy, children could not be held with their arrested parents, leading to thousands of children being separated from their mothers and fathers. Following widespread criticism and public outrage, Trump later modified the policy through an executive order.
Miller also campaigned for ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) programme, which was introduced for children who entered the United States illegally. Under the programme, these children could obtain legal documentation to pursue education and employment as adults. The programme was discontinued in 2021.
During Trump’s first term, Miller also played a role in imposing sweeping restrictions on visa issuance. These restrictions included a ban on nationals of several Muslim-majority countries entering the United States in 2017.
The initial order barred citizens of Syria, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen from entering the United States for 90 days. The policy was later revised, and the US Supreme Court ultimately upheld the revised version.
Miller was also one of the prominent supporters of Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 presidential election had been stolen from him through fraud. At the time, he also backed a plan to declare Trump the winner of the election. Source: Al Jazeera.
