Stephen Miller has been in Trump’s ear for nearly a decade, particularly oar-right adviser is returning to the White House in an important position for Donald Trump’s second term.
Stephen Miller, Trump’s point person on immigration for nearly a decade, will be the White House deputy chief of staff for policy, CNN first reported Monday. Vice President-elect Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) confirmed the news, congratulating Miller.
Miller has worked as a speechwriter and policy adviser for Trump since his first run for office. And for all of that time, Miller has been considered one of the most influential people in Trump’s ear, particularly on immigration policy. His new, high-profile job only cements that status. He is also known for getting involved in the decision-making process within the executive branch agencies, working behind the scenes to exert his will on the government.
The New York Times separately reported Monday that Miller was also “taking over policy planning for the transition,” and that his eventual portfolio is expected to be “vast.” Both CNN and the Times cited unnamed sources.
“President-Elect Trump will begin making decisions on who will serve in his second Administration soon,” a Trump spokesperson told HuffPost in a statement Monday afternoon. “Those decisions will be announced when they are made.”
Miller has also been a mainstay on the campaign trail. He notably spoke before Trump at the Aurora, Colorado, rally that highlighted Trump’s aggressive mass deportation plans, angrily denouncing what he called an “invasion” and “occupation” of “illegal” immigrants.
Promising to “send the illegals back home,” Miller spoke in front of posters of two mug shots. “Are these the kids you grew up with? Are these the neighbors you were raised with? Are these the neighbors you want in your city? No!” he said.
He referred to immigrants as “homeless” and “criminal,” and claimed they were “consuming and depleting our public resources,” “overwhelming” schools and hospitals, and “murdering innocent Americans.” At Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in New York City last month, Miller bellowed that Trump would declare, “America is for Americans, and Americans only!”
Miller’s fingerprints are all over Trump’s first term, including his ban on immigration from Muslim-majority nations, aggressive pushes at the U.S. southern border, and efforts to limit legal immigration. The legal advocacy group Miller started during the Biden administration, America First Legal, was one of the groups on the advisory board for Project 2025, the conservative playbook for a second Trump term.
Perhaps most notably, Miller has provided the most detail of any Trump adviser on potential plans for Trump’s “mass deportation” agenda, which aims to massively increase the rate at which the United States expels undocumented immigrants.
Miller has spoken about the plan in far-reaching terms, saying “it would be an undertaking that would be greater than any national infrastructure project we’ve done to date,” involving the local and state law enforcement, federal immigration authorities, and even National Guard and military personnel — though the legal grounds for that are contested.
Miller has publicly imagined constructing “very large staging facilities” to house would-be deportees, “where planes are moving off the runway constantly.” (Private prison executives were thrilled when Trump won, due to the potential for a massive expansion in the immigration detention, surveillance and transport sectors.)
News of Miller’s spot in Trump’s White House came shortly after Trump announced that Tom Homan, the former director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, would be serving as his “border czar.” Homan has pledged to “run the biggest deportation force this country has ever seen.”