Stephen Miller is best known for driving the immigration crackdown of Trump’s second term, setting a target of 3,000 arrests per day – far above levels under previous administrations.
US President Donald Trump on Friday promoted Stephen Miller, the architect of some of his toughest policies on immigration and other domestic issues, to run his White House after Republicans lost control of Congress in this week’s midterm elections.
Here are some facts about Trump’s next White House chief of staff:
TRUMP LOYALIST
Miller, 41, was raised in politically liberal Santa Monica, California, but developed a reputation as a combative conservative as a columnist at Duke University’s student newspaper. As a congressional aide in the 2010s, he was an early advocate for restricting immigration at a time when that was not a mainstream position in the Republican Party.
He joined Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, then served as an adviser and speechwriter in his first 2017-2021 term. After Trump lost the 2020 election, Miller founded the conservative advocacy group America First Legal, filing complaints that accused companies such as Nike of discriminating against white people.
In Trump’s second term, Miller has been deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser.
His wife, Katie Miller, is a conservative podcaster and former communications aide in Trump’s first administration.
IMMIGRATION CRACKDOWN
Miller is best known for driving the immigration crackdown of Trump’s second term, setting a target of 3,000 arrests per day – far above levels under previous administrations. He has pushed US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to target anybody in the country illegally, not just those with criminal records.
Home Depot locations where day laborers gather became hotbeds for ICE arrests after Miller said the agency should target the stores.
Hours after a Border Patrol agent fatally shot US citizen Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January, Miller called him a “domestic terrorist” and “would-be assassin” on social media, even though Reuters-verified video showed Pretti holding a cell phone, not a gun. Miller later said the agents involved “may not have been following” protocol.
Beyond enforcement, Miller has been a vocal advocate for ending birthright citizenship, and denounced the Supreme Court’s ruling that rejected that proposal as “one of the most destructive and outrageous decisions” in the court’s history.
Miller announced a ban on “birth tourism” after that ruling, seeking to prevent people from coming to the United States to deliver babies.
OTHER ISSUES
Miller also has been a prominent voice on many of the president’s other priorities, including countering diversity initiatives and targeting transgender rights. He is one of a small group of White House staffers who approve all executive orders, a person familiar with the matter said last year.
Miller has echoed Trump’s rhetoric on the war with Iran, saying in the early weeks of the conflict that US and Israeli strikes had wiped out Tehran’s leadership class and military capacity. Later, he touted a ceasefire and said on Fox News in July that some Iranian officials are “desperate” to strike a peace deal.
Miller has advocated for an aggressive foreign policy in other arenas as well.
He declined to rule out military action to acquire Greenland in January and said the US was “running Venezuela” after the capture of former President Nicolas Maduro in January. He has backed the US military’s attacks on suspected drug smugglers. “These are terrorists and they’re going to be killed,” he said in October 2025.
Miller pushed to expand a probe in Puerto Rico to prove a discredited theory about hacked voting machines after it found no evidence, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
With White House budget director Russell Vought, he has worked for months ahead of the midterm elections on executive actions that Trump can take on his own without approval from Congress.
