Stephen Miller spoke at an April event in Warren, Mich., marking President Trump’s first 100 days in office.Photo: Jeff Kowalsky/AFP/Getty Images
Stephen Miller wanted to keep the planes in the air—and that is where they stayed.
When a federal judge in March told the Trump administration to turn around flights of deported migrants headed to El Salvador, senior officials hastily convened a Saturday evening conference call to figure out what to do.
If they didn’t return the passengers, they would be defying a court order, some administration officials worried. Miller, who is President Trump’s deputy chief of staff, pushed for the planes to keep flying, which they ultimately did. The judge would later say that allowing officials to defy court judgments would make a “solemn mockery” of the Constitution.
The 39-year-old immigration hawk, who has been by Trump’s side since the 2016 campaign, has emerged as a singular figure in the second Trump administration, wielding more power than almost any other White House staffer in recent memory—and eager to circumvent legal limitations on his agenda.
He has his own staff of about 30 and a Secret Service detail, which White House officials said was because he had received death threats and serves as homeland security adviser. He has been responsible for the administration’s broadsides against universities, law firms and even museums. He has written or edited every executive order that Trump has signed.
Miller had considerable sway in Trump’s first term. But when aides at the time suggested promoting Miller to a leadership role at the Department of Homeland Security, Trump declined, according to a former administration official, telling aides he thought Miller wasn’t leader material.
His influence has expanded sharply since, thanks largely to his steadfast loyalty to Trump. This account of Miller’s tenure is based on interviews with current and former White House officials, Trump advisers and other prominent Republicans.
Some of Miller’s colleagues said they were alarmed by some of the legal maneuvers that Miller has proposed for executing the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda, and Trump has gently ribbed him for being too “happy” about deportations.
Miller, who has written or edited every executive order signed by Trump in his second term, attended a May event of the Make America Healthy Again Commission.Photo: Jacquelyn Martin/Associated Press
Miller, who isn’t a lawyer, is the official who first suggested using the wartime Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants, which the Justice Department pursued. He also privately, then publicly, floated suspending habeas corpus, or the right for prisoners to challenge their detention in court, which the administration hasn’t tried. That prompted pushback from other senior White House and Justice Department officials.
His orders to increase arrests regardless of migrants’ criminal histories set off days of protests in Los Angeles. Miller coordinated the federal government’s response, giving orders to agencies including the Pentagon, when Trump sent in the Marines and the National Guard, according to officials familiar with the matter.
Miller’s portfolio covers almost every issue Trump is interested in. In recent months, he talked to CEOs about a coming tariff announcement; joined a meeting between Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg and Trump about the company’s antitrust case; and met with other tech companies on artificial intelligence.
Even some posts at cabinet agencies have been described by administration officials as reporting directly to Miller, effectively bypassing cabinet secretaries.
There are some limits to his influence. He was supportive of Meta’s push to settle its antitrust case, which fell flat. Trump last week signaled concerns that the administration’s deportation policies were too aggressive, calling for a pause in some deportations that he has since rolled back. Trump, asked how Miller’s directives on deportations squared with his own, declined to put distance between the two of them. “We have a great understanding,” Trump said.
The aggressive posture has started to spark some voter backlash, with polls showing Trump’s approval rating on immigration and deportations has turned negative.
Several White House staffers said Miller always takes the most “extreme” view of any issue, and his positions have cost the administration in court. In Trump’s first 100 days back in office, courts issued nationwide injunctions in 25 cases against the federal government, compared with six in his entire first term and four during the Biden administration, according to a report by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Several cases have already reached the Supreme Court, which has ruled against Trump on some immigration cases.
“I think the administration has miscalculated and overstepped,” said Skye Perryman, who leads Democracy Forward, an organization that has repeatedly sued Trump.
Miller has responded to the courts’ intervention by denouncing it as “judicial tyranny.” His allies argue illegal border crossings are down to almost zero because his aggressive proposals are deterring migrants.
“Stephen Miller is one of President Trump’s most trusted and longest serving aides for a reason—he delivers,” said Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary.
In the wilderness
Miller stuck by Trump when many staffers quit their jobs after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. He had helped draft Trump’s speech that morning, and worked until 12 p.m. on Jan. 20—the day Trump’s first term ended—telling the officer taking his badge he would be back in four years.
“Sixteen Hundred Pennsylvania Avenue is the greatest address in the world, and though we now leave these gates, rest assured, this is not goodbye,” he wrote to colleagues.
Three months later, Miller launched a nonprofit, America First Legal, aimed at countering what Miller described as a “years-long, one-sided legal assault” by the left. “Now, we must turn the tables,” he said at the time.
Over the next four years, it filed dozens of lawsuits, many of which are ongoing, categorized on its website under topics including “DEI,” “Woke Corporations” and “Women’s Sports.” The group’s targets are now under fire from the Trump administration, too.
Miller speaking with reporters outside the White House in January.Photo: Francis Chung/Press Pool
In 2022, the group called on the Education Department to stop distributing federal funds to universities where it alleged antisemitism was festering. Three years later, the Trump administration would do just that at universities including Harvard, Columbia and Northwestern.
In 2024, Miller’s group helped 16 Republican-led states sue the Biden administration over a policy that protected illegal immigrants married to U.S. citizens from deportation. A judge ruled in the states’ favor, and the Trump administration overturned the policy this year.
By the time Trump returned to the White House, the group had about two dozen lawyers on staff and had raised more than $60 million from donors, whose identities it doesn’t disclose. The group paid Miller more than $500,000 last year, according to his financial disclosure.
Meanwhile, Miller continued to play an active role across the Republican Party, even if his outreach wasn’t always welcome.
Congressional aides fielded lengthy calls from Miller about illegal immigration, often without any specific requests. One likened him to a grandmother who wouldn’t stop talking and said his calls were akin to listening to a podcast. Others said he would call to scold aides about how they had framed a social-media post on a particular issue or criticizing the way they had worded a press release.
As a House committee prepared for then-Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to testify, Miller came to the Hill to play the role of Mayorkas, aides said. During the prep, he answered questions as the secretary—but also chimed in to give lawmakers advice on questions.
Miller was determined to kill a bipartisan bill pushed by Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma in 2024 on the border and regularly called House Speaker Mike Johnson.
He also called the Republican National Committee to offer his advice on how the party should communicate on immigration, sometimes offering his thoughts on what the RNC chairman could tweet, people familiar with the discussions said.
He was a regular visitor to Mar-a-Lago during the campaign, meeting with Trump above his ballroom. Campaign aides say Miller always wanted to talk more about immigration. Trump’s top pollster, Tony Fabrizio, and his other aides wanted to keep the message on the economy. Trump staffers started displaying ominous photos of migrants at his events.
Some posts at cabinet agencies have been described by administration officials as reporting directly to Miller.Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images
Hundreds of orders
In the first term, Trump was largely unprepared to govern. Miller regularly complained then that others in the administration tried to block his immigration decisions, and outside lawyers would stymie their efforts. This time, Miller came in determined to correct that.
He brought hundreds of proposed orders to the White House as well as his own staff. Russell Vought, the onetime treasurer of America First Legal, is now the White House budget chief. Reed Rubinstein, the group’s senior vice president, was nominated as legal adviser of the State Department. Matt Whitaker, a board member, is the U.S. permanent representative to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
He now tells other staffers how to behave around Trump, people who have heard his comments say, and upgraded his office from one on a different floor to one steps from the Oval Office.
During the first term, Miller would push for hard-line policies that others blanched at, including advocating for several dozen countries to be added to the travel ban list of seven, a former administration official said. People laughed, but he was serious, the official said. This time, Trump announced a ban that covered a dozen countries.
He keeps in Trump’s good graces by giving Trump ideas—but more importantly, helping the president carry his own out.
Administration officials noted how Miller shut down discussion about whether the U.S. should bomb Houthi targets in a Signal chat that was accidentally shared with The Atlantic’s editor in chief. As the vice president and top national security officials discussed options, Miller weighed in.
“As I heard it, the president was clear,” Miller said. “Green light,” he added.
Earlier this month, Leavitt, the press secretary, interviewed Miller at a private event for Republican donors at the Four Seasons in Washington.
Miller, who grew up in Santa Monica, Calif., said large swaths of Los Angeles were engaged in a “rebellion,” according to people present.
Los Angeles had become like Cancún, he said—it was fine to visit, but not good for its own citizens. To conclude the event, Leavitt told the crowd that Miller needed to return to his work of deportations.
Miller smiled in response, and then left to return to the White House.
My wife and I recently returned from a Danube River cruise — no, it’s not blue, the waltz notwithstanding — and we had a wonderful time.
One of the many pleasures of these relatively small river cruises is all the interesting people you get to meet from around the world. This time around, we spent most of our time with Canadians and Australians, who seemed to enjoy our company once they determined we shared their low opinion of our president.
When one of the Canadians we dined with several times learned that we had signed on for a “Sound of Music” tour of Salzburg, Austria — featuring fountains, mountains, cityscapes, trees, a church and other locations from the movie — he told a nice story about an Austrian who emotionally described to him his love for their traditional folk song, “Edelweiss.”
I had read that the song actually was written just for the movie and had no significance for Austrians, which our guide confirmed the next day. So when our new friend repeated his story at dinner that evening, I politely corrected him, explaining that although some Austrians may have embraced the song — the Edelweiss is their national flower — it was a Rodgers and Hammerstein creation.
I won’t say our friend was crestfallen, but he did seem disappointed. I should add that I have a long tradition of spoiling people’s favorite stories, in part through the urban legend columns I used to write semiregularly.
So here’s the question. Is the truth really that important, if it spoils a good narrative?
After all, we’re in what some people have characterized as the Post-Truth Era, ushered in most recently by Donald Trump, his congressional lapdogs and Fox News but immortalized much earlier by Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. Falsehoods abound, not just in the White House but all over social media.
Here’s how the European Center for Populism Studies explained the Big Lie technique.
The big lie is the name of a propaganda technique, originally coined by Adolf Hitler in “Mein Kampf,” who says “The great masses of the people … will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one,” and denotes where a known falsehood is stated and repeated and treated as if it is self-evidently true, in hopes of swaying the course of an argument in a direction that takes the big lie for granted rather than critically questioning it or ignoring it.
Pssst. If that doesn’t sound familiar, wake up.
Hitler used it to blame his country’s problems on his best available scapegoat, Jewish people. Trump and company have broadened this approach to encompass multiple scapegoats — immigrants, foreigners, transgender people, people who are “woke” because they encourage social justice and care about the future health of our planet — and to big lies involving the 2020 election and so many other subjects that we’re numb to it. He lies about everything, and his supporters don’t seem to know or care.
I remember when the idea of act checking first emerged in political coverage. Instead of just quoting politicians who were fudging the truth, the fact-checkers would point out when they were lying or exaggerating, in the case of The Washington Post by assigning up to four Pinocchios for the most egregious falsehoods.
Some politicians would correct themselves in future pronouncements. Others wouldn’t bother.
Trump, the ultimate Pinocchio, is oblivious to Fact Checking. He just plows ahead — “They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating the cats!” — repeating the same misinformation over and over at rallies, news conferences, debates. Facts are irrelevant.
Perhaps most amazingly, his long-since-debunked fraud allegations regarding the 2020 election are being incorporated into Oklahoma’s public-school curriculum. Elsewhere, facts about racial injustice, climate change and our nation’s history have been altered or eliminated from public school curricula to suit the MAGA agenda. Kinglike, Trump even is punishing colleges, states and others who won’t go along with his determination to impose “1984”-style Newspeak.
I think at least some Trump followers — particularly Republican elected leaders — know he is lying. But because it suits their preferred narrative, they go along. That’s frightening enough. Even scarier, though, are the people who are too dim, lazy or Foxcentric to figure out that we’re not being overrun by bloodthirsty killer immigrants or that non-straight men and women aren’t a threat to our military, our children or anything else, not to mention that Trump really lost the 2020 election, that the rioters storming the Capitol weren’t the true victims of Jan. 6, that indiscriminate ICE goon squads aren’t the best solution to illegal immigration and that vaccinating our children continues to be a very good idea.
They don’t just accept the lies. They spread them. That’s why we must be advocates for the truth, correcting and even confronting falsehoods, at rallies, on social media, in conversations. Ignorance is not bliss. It’s fueling our country’s descent into unrecognizable autocratic chaos.
“Eidelweiss” may be trivial. But innocent people being demonized? Trust in our elections destroyed? Our constitutional guarantees shredded? Our planet’s climate threatened? Long-dead diseases given new life?History rewritten?
Speak up. The truth is worth defending.
This is a contributed opinion column. Bill White can be reached at whitebil1974@gmail.com. His Threads handle is whitebil2000. The views expressed in this piece are those of its individual author and should not be interpreted as reflecting the views of this publication. For more details on commentaries, read our guide to guest opinions at themorningcall.com/opinions.
The fact is ICE and the DHS want to not have accountability because they are clearly breaking the law. Random people not in uniform or showing identification with masked faces is not detaining or arresting. It is out right kidnapping. And any movement of that person from that point on is trafficking. So this is a lawless government who feels it is above the laws and doesn’t have to answer to any other branch of government. Scary times. Hugs
Mayor Ras Baraka of Newark confronts ICE agents at a demonstration outside an immigrant detention centre in Elizabeth, New Jersey in May 2025. The Mayor arrived at the gates of Delaney Hall to inspect the previously vacant prison that is being converted into an immigrant detention center.
Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images
After a spate of tense encounters involving lawmakers at Immigration and Customs Enforcement facilities, the Department of Homeland Security is asking members of Congress to provide 72 hours of notice before visiting detention centers, according to new guidance.
Under the annual appropriations act, lawmakers are allowed to enter any DHS facilities “used to detain or otherwise house aliens” to inspect them as part of their oversight duties. The act outlines that they are not required “to provide prior notice of the intent to enter a facility.”
The agency’s new memo also seeks to differentiate ICE field offices from detention facilities, noting that “ICE Field Offices are not detention facilities” and therefore do not fall under the appropriations act provision.
Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the top Democrat on the Homeland Security Committee, called the move “unprecedented” and an “affront to the Constitution and Federal law.”
“This unlawful policy is a smokescreen to deny Member visits to ICE offices across the country, which are holding migrants – and sometimes even U.S. citizens – for days at a time. They are therefore detention facilities and are subject to oversight and inspection at any time. DHS pretending otherwise is simply their latest lie,” Thompson said in a statement.
Previous DHS language for lawmaker visitations said “ICE will comply with the law and accommodate Members seeking to visit/tour an ICE detention facility for the purpose of conducting oversight.”
The recent memo now says the department “will make every effort” to comply with the law and accommodate members, while listing circumstances like “operational conditions, security posture, etc,” that could impact the time of entry.
CNN has reached out to DHS for comment and further information.
The recent changes come as Democratic lawmakers have had run-ins with law enforcement after showing up at the facilities as they push back against the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
Rep. LaMonica McIver exits the grounds at Delancey Hall ICE detention prison, Friday, May 9, 2025, in Newark, N.J,
Angelina Katsanis/AP/File
Democratic Rep. LaMonica McIver was indicted last week on federal charges alleging she impeded and interfered with immigration officers outside a New Jersey detention center as McIver and other Democratic lawmakers, Reps. Robert Menendez Jr. and Bonnie Watson Coleman, tried to visit the Newark facility last month.
Newark Mayor Ras Baraka was arrested at the scene after attempting to join the three members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation in entering the facility. He was charged with trespassing, which was later dropped.
Other lawmakers have faced similar treatment in recent weeks while protesting President Donald Trump’s immigration policies.
Democratic Sen. Alex Padilla was forcefully removed from a news conference in Los Angeles last week and coerced to the ground after attempting to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question.
He interrupted Noem as she was giving remarks at the FBI headquarters in Los Angeles on the administration’s response to the anti-ICE protests in the city. He was quickly removed from the room, brought to the ground by law enforcement, and placed in handcuffs during the rapidly unfolding incident.
New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is placed under arrest by ICE and FBI agents outside federal immigration court on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, in New York.
Olga Fedorova/AP
In another instance, New York City comptroller and mayoral candidate Brad Lander was arrested at Manhattan’s immigration court on Tuesday after he tried to escort a migrant whom officers were attempting to arrest.
Multiple videos showed the New York politician standing next to a man and locking arms with him as federal officers approached. The officers asked Lander to step aside so they could arrest the man, and when he and other bystanders tried to block the arrest, a scuffle broke out between them.
CNN’s Holmes Lybrand and Karina Tsui contributed to this report.
Federal officials have begun carrying out President Donald Trump’s orders to enforce a World War II-era criminal law that requires virtually all non-citizens in the country to register with and submit fingerprints to the government.
Since April, law enforcement in Louisiana, Arizona, Montana, Alabama, Texas and Washington, D.C., have charged people with willful “failure to register” under the Alien Registration Act, an offense most career federal public defenders have never encountered before. Many of those charged were already in jail and in ongoing deportation proceedings when prosecutors presented judges with the new charges against them.
The registration provision in the law, which was passed in 1940 amid widespread public fear about immigrants’ loyalty to the U.S., had been dormant for 75 years, but it is still on the books. Failure to register is considered a “petty offense” — a misdemeanor with maximum penalties of six months imprisonment or a $1,000 fine.
In reviving the law, the Trump administration may put undocumented immigrants in a catch-22. If they register, they must hand over detailed, incriminating information to the federal government — including how and when they entered the country. But knowingly refusing to register is also a crime, punishable by arrest or prosecution, on top of the ever-present threat of deportation.
“The sort of obvious reason to bring back registration in the first place is the hope that people will register, and therefore give themselves up effectively to the government because they already confessed illegal entry,” said Jonathan Weinberg, a Wayne State University law professor who has studied the registration law.
But the Trump administration also has another goal. It says one purpose of the registration regime is to provoke undocumented immigrants to choose a third option: leave the country voluntarily, or, in the words of the Department of Homeland Security, compulsory “mass self-deportation.” Those efforts, alongside the administration’s invocation of the Alien Enemies Act and a more aggressive approach to immigration raids, are meant to achieve a broader, overarching campaign promise: the largest deportation program in the history of America.
“For decades, this law has been ignored — not anymore,” the department said in a February announcement that it would enforce the law. The department called “mass self-deportation” a “safer path for aliens and law enforcement,” and said it saves U.S. taxpayer dollars.
The Department of Homeland Security did not answer questions about its enforcement policies.
A long dormant law will now affect millions
The Alien Registration Act was passed in 1940, amid fears about immigrants’ loyalties. A separate provision of the statute criminalizes advocacy for overthrowing the government. For about two decades, that provision was used to prosecute people who were accused of being either pro-fascist or pro-Communist.
The registration provision, though, remained largely dormant, and had not been enforced in 75 years. It applies to non-citizens, regardless of legal status, who are in the U.S. for 30 days or longer.
Certain categories of legal immigrants have already met the requirement. Immigrants who have filed applications to become permanent residents are considered registered by DHS, for example. And even some undocumented U.S. residents are already registered: U.S. residents who have received “parole” — a form of humanitarian protection from deportation — are also considered registered.
Still, DHS estimates that up to 3.2 million immigrants are currently unregistered and are affected by the new enforcement regime. The administration has created a new seven-page form that non-citizens must use. The form requires people, under penalty of perjury, to provide biographical details, contact information, details about any criminal history and the circumstances of how they entered the U.S.
After DHS issued regulations to enforce the registration requirement in April, the administration announced that 47,000 undocumented immigrants had registered using the new form.
A legal challenge and a series of prosecutions
The Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights and other advocacy groups filed a lawsuit challenging Trump’s move to revive the registration requirement in March.
U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden, a Trump appointee, initially expressed skepticism toward the administration, saying in a recent hearing that officials had pulled a “big switcheroo” on undocumented immigrants. But McFadden in April refused the plaintiffs’ request to temporarily block the policy, saying the Coalition likely lacks the legal standing to sue because it has not shown that it would be harmed by the policy. The group has appealed McFadden’s decision.
In the meantime, the administration has begun to prosecute people for failure to register for the first time in seven decades.
The prosecutions so far have stumbled.
On May 19, a federal magistrate judge in Louisiana consolidated and dismissed five of the criminal cases, saying prosecutors had no probable cause to believe the defendants had intentionally refused to register.
Judge Michael North wrote that the Alien Registration Act requires “some level of subjective knowledge or bad intent” behind the choice not to register. The prosecutions, the judge wrote, are impermissible because most people are simply unaware of the law, and the government “did not provide these Defendants — as well as millions of similarly situated individuals here without government permission — with a way to register” since 1950.
But North also pointed out that the government may have an easier path to proving probable cause in the future, given that DHS created a new registration form in April. And government attorneys have appealed the five dismissed cases.
The Justice Department and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana declined to comment on recent charges filed under the law.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia said the office “is aggressively pursuing criminals in the district and will use all criminal justice resources available to make D.C. safe and to carry out President Trump’s and Attorney General Bondi’s direction to support immigration enforcement.”
The other federal district attorneys whose offices filed charges did not respond to a request for comment.
Michelle LaPointe, legal director at the American Immigration Council, an immigrants’ rights advocacy group, said these initial cases are the “tip of the iceberg.” LaPointe is among the attorneys representing the Coalition in its lawsuit against the administration.
“I don’t expect them to abate just because there were some dismissals,” LaPointe said, pointing to North’s statements about future charges. “They have already stated that they intend to make prosecution of the few immigration-related criminal statutes a priority for DOJ, and it’s very easy for them to at least charge, even if they’re not always gonna be able to sustain their burden to secure a conviction.”
Weinberg, the Wayne State law professor, agreed that the administration will likely continue attempting broad enforcement.
“If they bring a whole lot of prosecutions and end up losing all, they may step back,” Weinberg said. “If they bring a whole lot and win a few, they’ll say, ‘Well, that’s the basis on which we can move further’” and appeal — potentially all the way to the Supreme Court, he noted.
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