Stephen Miller, who served as President Donald Trump’s deputy White House chief of staff, is increasingly focusing on the children of immigrants. A new report highlights a strategy that suggests immigrants, along with their U.S.-raised families, create long-term costs for the country.
The New York Times reported that Miller has claimed internally and publicly that immigration issues extend beyond the first generation. He believes the government should treat newcomers and their children as part of the same policy fight. This stance has gained traction as the administration asks the U.S. Supreme Court to support Trump’s executive order aimed at ending birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment. Such a move would significantly change American citizenship rules.
Miller has been vocal on television and social media, using language that critics say mirrors earlier nativist politics. Speaking on Fox News this month, he pointed to Somalia as an example and stated, “With many of these immigrant groups, the first generation often struggles. Again, Somalia is a clear example. You see ongoing issues in every generation. There are consistently high rates of welfare use, high rates of criminal activity, and failures to assimilate.”
The administration has cited cases it claims show fraud in immigrant communities, particularly prosecutions in Minnesota involving members of the Somali community, where nearly 60 individuals have been convicted in schemes connected to social services. Trump and Miller have repeatedly referenced these cases in speeches and posts, arguing that immigrant communities can bring dysfunction that doesn’t diminish over time.
Miller posted the following: “This is the great lie of mass migration. You are not just importing individuals. You are importing societies. No magic transformation occurs when failed states cross borders. At scale, migrants and their descendants recreate the conditions and crises of their broken homelands.”
Former officials and policy experts argue that the core idea is flawed and the policy direction is broader than it sounds. “He wants to completely change the belief that we are a nation where immigrants can ever gain full and equal rights as native-born Americans,” said Andrea Flores, a former White House official in the Biden administration who worked on immigration issues.
Julia Gelatt, associate director of the U.S. immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute, noted that Miller’s viewpoint overlooks decades of data on integration and mobility. “Just as we saw with immigrants who arrived around the early 1900s, the children of immigrants who have come to the United States since the 1960s learn fluent English, pursue more education than their parents, and earn higher incomes, demonstrating strong integration patterns,” Gelatt said. “Research consistently shows the upward mobility of children of immigrants.”
Pratheepan Gulasekaram, a law professor at the University of Colorado Law School, commented that Miller seems to think migrants are “forever marked by their origins, separate and opposed to the fabric of our community.” “In essence, he views immigration solely as a cultural threat,” Gulasekaram said.
If the Supreme Court supports the administration’s push against birthright citizenship, it could lead to a new enforcement approach that treats families, including U.S.-born children in mixed-status households, as removable even when constitutional protections seem clear.
