White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller railed against Republicans he saw as too weak on immigration and suggested Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients would one day replace white Americans, leaked emails to Breitbart News between 2015 and 2016 show.
The Southern Poverty Law Center's "Hatewatch" section published its latest series of emails Tuesday which were leaked by an ex-Breitbart editor. The emails reveal Miller pitching white nationalist and vigilantly anti-immigrant ideas to the right-wing publication while he was a rising GOP aide to then-Senator Jeff Sessions and later a top Trump campaign policy adviser on immigration. Miller's latest leaked messages show he shared an article from far-right website WorldNetDaily with Phyllis Schlafly, who suggested the idea of shipping immigrants out of the U.S. on trains as a scare tactic and expressed fears that migrants might "replace existing demographics."
Miller's emails blast DACA, former President Barack Obama and Republicans including former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor for what he described as their support of "illegal immigration." As Newsweek previously noted in following the Miller "Hatewatch" series, Miller also attacked Florida GOP Senator Marco Rubio and cheered after he dropped out of the 2016 presidential race against then-candidate Trump.
"Jeb [Bush] has mastered the art of using immigration rhetoric to sound 'moderate' while pushing the most extremist policies," Miller wrote, adding that Bush wanted to use "immigration to replace existing demographics."
As the SPLC's Michael Hayden notes, Miller refers to a "great replacement" theory frequently expressed by extreme white nationalist figures and in the manifestos of several mass shooter suspects.
"Demanding DREAMers be given citizenship because they 'know no other home.' That principle is an endorsement of perpetual birthright citizenship for the foreign-born," Miller wrote in the email, referring to DACA recipients. "Not only will the U.S.-born children of future illegal immigrants and guest workers be made automatic U.S. citizens, but their foreign-born children will too because, as [former Republican House Majority Leader Eric] Cantor said, 'Our country was founded on the principle.'"
In September 2017, Trump announced he would roll back the DACA program, which has been utilized by more than 800,000 undocumented immigrants since Obama created it in 2012. Eligibility is extended to individuals who have lived in the U.S. illegally since they were born, a group commonly referred to as "dreamers." According to Department of Homeland Security statistics, only a few thousand dreamers have had their DACA status revoked or terminated by the agency between 2012 and 2017.
In a June 2015 email, Miller lamented that "illegal youth" are allowed to remain in the U.S. as he said they soak up "both work permits and generous free cash tax credits." Miller, writing to Katie McHugh, the former Breitbart editor who leaked the emails, used the subject line, "The Immigration Surge" to make his point.
The more than 900 leaked emails involving Miller's correspondence with Breitbart repeatedly show his effort to promote the idea of a massively expanding "foreign-born share" of the U.S. workforce displacing current demographics.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Benjamin Fearnow is a reporter based out of Newsweek's New York City offices. He was previously at CBS and Mediaite ... Read more
