Stephen Miller, President Trump's new White House chief of staff, has driven the administration's major domestic policies, including its immigration enforcement. ABC7 reviewed his past remarks and predicted that Democrats will keep scrutinizing him now that Republicans have lost both the House and the Senate.
According to ABC7, Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump's new White House chief of staff, is the man behind the administration's signature domestic policies, especially its sweeping immigration crackdown. Miller has defended President Trump's vision for overhauling the government since the 2016 presidential campaign, and his harsh rhetoric has drawn attention from both supporters and critics. ABC7 said Democrats are expected to examine his record closely, since he will lead the White House during a lame-duck period (a time of diminished power at the end of a term) after Republicans lost both the Senate and the House.
His remarks on immigration were forceful. Appearing on Fox News in December 2023, Miller said of the surge in migrants crossing the border, "We are being conquered," and argued that it could not be reversed without mass deportations on the scale of millions. In May 2025, he said the administration was "actively looking at" suspending habeas corpus (the legal right to challenge one's detention) as a way to expand its authority to deport people in the country illegally. ABC7 reported that over the following 18 months or so, the Trump administration did not publicly pursue the idea.
During President Trump's first term, Miller pushed the policy of separating parents from children in families apprehended at the border. In 2018, he told The New York Times that it was a decision to apply "zero tolerance for illegal entry." The policy provoked fierce backlash and was not revived in the second term, but ABC7 noted that the mass deportation of people already living in the U.S. illegally is separating families along lines of immigration status. In 2017, Miller also laid out a plan in the White House briefing room to reduce the issuance of green cards and give priority to English speakers and skilled workers. In June of this year, after the U.S. Supreme Court blocked an attempt to end birthright citizenship, he reportedly called the ruling "a deep knife wound in the heart of the American republic" on Fox News.
His controversial remarks extend beyond immigration. In January of this year, Alex Pretti, 37, was shot and killed by federal agents during a protest against immigration policy in Minneapolis. Miller called him a "domestic terrorist" on social media. In a later statement, he said the federal agents at the scene "may not have followed" procedure. In August 2025, on Fox News, he called Democrats who criticized the deployment of the National Guard a "domestic extremist organization."