100+ Democrats Demand Stephen Miller’s Immediate Firing
November 21, 2019 (Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Representatives Don Beyer (D-VA), Barbara Lee (D-CA), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), Bill Pascrell Jr. (D-NJ), Norma J. Torres (D-CA), Bill Foster (D-IL), and Chellie Pingree (D-ME) today led a group of 107 Members of Congress in demanding that the White House fire Senior Advisor to the President Stephen Miller.
Their letter quoted from emails Miller wrote, which were recently published by the Southern Poverty Law Center. They connected the white nationalist sentiments expressed in those emails to discriminatory Trump Administration policy proposals initiated or influenced by Miller.
They wrote:
“We formally request that you immediately remove White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller from your administration. A documented white nationalist has no place in any presidential administration, and especially not in such an influential position.
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“Last week, numerous emails sent by Mr. Miller were made public that clearly establish that he is an avid white nationalist and conspiracy theorist. These emails included material exposing Miller’s support of white supremacist ideology and literature, xenophobic conspiracy theories, as well as his promotion of white supremacist websites.
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“Beyond the disturbing emails that Mr. Miller wrote, is the clear conclusion that he brought his dedication to white nationalism with him into your administration and translated this hateful ideology directly into your administration’s discriminatory immigration policies.
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“Miller’s emails and the sentiments expressed in them are incompatible with public service and render him unfit to shape any policy – immigration or otherwise. We refuse to tolerate white nationalism and xenophobia in the White House or elsewhere in the United States. Mr. Miller must be fired immediately.”
The letter was signed by Reps. Donald S. Beyer Jr., Barbara Lee, Bonnie Watson Coleman, Ilhan Omar, Bill Pascrell Jr., Norma J. Torres, Bill Foster, Chellie Pingree, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, Ben Ray Luján, David N. Cicilline, Jerrold Nadler, Joaquin Castro, Ted W. Lieu, Joseph P. Kennedy III, Jamie Raskin, Henry C. "Hank" Johnson, Jr., Peter A. DeFazio, Karen Bass, Ruben Gallego, Nydia Velazquez, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Mike Doyle, Gerald E. Connolly, Bobby L. Rush, Tony Cárdenas, Steve Cohen, Alan Lowenthal, Adriano Espaillat, Susan Wild, Andre' Carson, Dwight Evans, Albio Sires, Jan Schakowsky, G. K. Butterfield, Frank Pallone, Jr., Tom Malinowski, Eliot L. Engel, Grace F. Napolitano, William R. Keating, Jared Huffman, Rep. Nanette Diaz Barragán, David E. Price, Mark Pocan, Juan Vargas, Earl Blumenauer, Veronica Escobar, Mike Quigley, Jimmy Gomez, Sylvia R. Garcia, Joyce Beatty, Suzanne Bonamici, Jesús G. “Chuy” García, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, Sharice L. Davids, Julia Brownley, Gregory W. Meeks, Brenda L. Lawrence, Seth Moulton, Adam Smith, Nita M. Lowey, Zoe Lofgren, Andy Levin, Pramila Jayapal, Bradley S. Schneider, Judy Chu, Darren Soto, Brendan F. Boyle , Mark Takano, Rick Larsen, John Yarmuth, Yvette D. Clarke, Jahana Hayes, Pete Aguilar, Raúl M. Grijalva, Tim Ryan, Peter Welch, Lucille Roybal-Allard, José E. Serrano, Marc Veasey, Lloyd Doggett, Frederica Wilson, Jimmy Panetta, Sheila Jackson Lee, Val Butler Demings, Anna G. Eshoo, Betty McCollum, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Paul Tonko, Ed Perlmutter, Terri Sewell, Raja Krishnamoorthi, Gwen Moore, Grace Meng, Jackie Speier, James P. McGovern, Deb Haaland, Al Green, Daniel T. Kildee, Mark DeSaulnier, Danny K. Davis, Gilbert R. Cisneros, Jr., Brian Higgins, Rosa DeLauro, Diana DeGette, and Alma Adams.
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The Honorable Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Ave N.W.,
Washington, DC 20500
Dear President Trump:
We formally request that you immediately remove White House Senior Advisor Stephen Miller from your administration. A documented white nationalist has no place in any presidential administration, and especially not in such an influential position.
Last week, numerous emails sent by Mr. Miller were made public that clearly establish that he is an avid white nationalist and conspiracy theorist. These emails included material exposing Miller’s support of white supremacist ideology and literature, xenophobic conspiracy theories, as well as his promotion of white supremacist websites. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Hatewatch blog, which obtained the emails, 80 percent of the more than 900 emails directly referenced race or immigration, and none contained “examples of Miller writing sympathetically or even in neutral tones about any person who is non-white or foreign-born.” Given Mr. Miller’s role in shaping immigration policy for your administration, his documented dedication to extremist, anti-immigrant ideology and conspiracy-mongering is disqualifying.
Beyond the disturbing emails that Mr. Miller wrote, is the clear conclusion that he brought his dedication to white nationalism with him into your administration and translated this hateful ideology directly into your administration’s discriminatory immigration policies. Mr. Miller’s documented hatred of Muslim immigrants shaped your Muslim ban, and sheds new light on your administration’s intent in writing that ban. Mr. Miller’s clear support for halting all immigration is evident in many forms, including your continued support for ending DACA as well as the increasing difficulty of obtaining asylum and visas across all categories. There is a clear line between Miller’s advocacy for books like “Camp of the Saints,”—a novel celebrated by neo-Nazis for promoting the view of non-white immigrants as “monsters”— and the Administration’s inhumane family separation policy, of which Miller was the primary architect.
Stephen Miller’s nativism was cited as a major impetus behind your decision to reject a bipartisan compromise immigration bill that would have protected Dreamers due to his belief that the compromise would not reduce enough documented immigration. Appallingly, Mr. Miller referred to refugees as “foreign-born terrorists” in his emails, a belief which clearly translated to the unprecedented low ceiling on refugee admissions and even lower actual entrants at a time of the worst international refugee crisis in history. These are just a few obvious examples of Mr. Miller’s white supremacist influence on your immigration policy, and it seems likely that his perfidious adherence to extremist ideology has shaped your administration in ways that are not yet public. Miller’s emails and the sentiments expressed in them are incompatible with public service and render him unfit to shape any policy – immigration or otherwise.
We refuse to tolerate white nationalism and xenophobia in the White House or elsewhere in the United States. Mr. Miller must be fired immediately.
Text of the letter follows below, and a signed copy is available here.
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