Stephen Miller, the glowering Nosferatu-like creature who declared that Donald Trump’s immigration policy “will not be questioned,” has shaped that policy with alternative facts from a recognized hate group.
The New York Times reports today on a Trump cabinet meeting in which the alleged president described immigrants of color and creed as primitive, disease-ridden terrorists. They describe Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller disinforming Trump with material from the Center for Immigration Studies without noting that the organization is a white nationalist hate group.
The newspaper of record has buried their lede behind nuanced reporting on the specific words Trump used, but CIS has indisputable roots grown old and deep within the nativist and racist soil of the alt-right. Miller, who takes pride in his longtime association with the alt-right, has been feeding their hate speech to Trump in order to fan the flames of his hatred for immigration.
Trump made his controversial comments in a meeting where he railed at the White House staff over his flagging Muslim ban. But the more telling vignette is that “Mr. Miller was visibly displeased, according to people present, when State Department officials pushed back, citing another study that found refugees to be a net benefit to the economy.”
Reporters Michael Shear and Julie Davis call Miller an immigration “restrictionist.” It is more correct to say that he wants to throttle immigration, especially nonwhite and non-Christian immigration, and that he objects to evidence-based policy. “He called the [State Department’s] contention absurd and said it was exactly the wrong kind of thinking,” they report. You see, Miller prefers fake immigration news.
In another meeting to discuss the Dream Act, “Stephen Miller’s presence made it a much different experience than I expected,” Sen. Richard Durbin said later. When Miller is in the room, expect him to kill immigration dreams.
There has been a fair amount of media attention to the Trump administration’s intentional destruction of the State Department as well as its handling of other key federal agencies involved in immigration. Miller’s malevolent presence is everywhere in this story, but the NYT has focused on presidential words and beliefs, obscuring presidential actions. On immigration, Donald Trump behaves exactly like a race-baiting hate group would, and his primary policy advice comes from an unabashed advocate of hate group propaganda.
This is how America ends up with a government that prioritizes breaking up immigrant families. News outlets should stop wasting ink and electrons probing the psychology of Donald Trump’s racial or religious animus. The origins and effects of his policy are evidence enough to call it bigotry.
Featured image via Gage Skidmore Flickr under Creative Commons license