Donald Trump's deputy chief of staff and the architect of his immigration policy. In Trump's second term Miller set a target for ICE to arrest 3,000 people a day; by early June 2025 the agency was averaging roughly 1,100. He has told ICE officers: "You have federal immunity in the conduct of your duties"—a claim legal scholars dispute.
After the killing of Alex Pretti, a protester shot by CBP agents in Minneapolis on January 24th 2026, Miller called him a "would-be assassin" and "domestic terrorist"—claims contradicted by video evidence showing Pretti had been disarmed before he was shot.
Miller views America as a country threatened by an "invasion" of outsiders, and the Trump administration has rewritten the legal immigration system by executive fiat. A travel ban blocks most legal immigration from nearly 40 countries, most of them in Africa and the Middle East; about one in five people seeking to move to America are now barred. Close to 90% of refugees admitted since Trump's first full month in office are white South Africans. In December 2025 the president paused the green-card lottery programme, citing national-security concerns. The head of Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) has said he hopes to eliminate a visa that allows foreign students to stay in America for up to three years after graduation; many of these students eventually secure an H-1B visa. In September 2025 the administration announced a $100,000 fee for new H-1B visas, which applies to some applicants; employers are spooked, and one immigration lawyer reckons his clients submitted 20% fewer names for the H-1B lottery than at the same point a year earlier.
Miller's ideas have roots in Pat Buchanan, a conservative commentator who argued in the 1990s and 2000s that Americans are "addicted to this myth" of the melting pot and whose "America First" stance has influenced MAGA leaders. Buchanan echoed the sentiment of Albert Johnson, who in 1924 sponsored a law that limited annual immigration to 2% of every nationality's population in 1890—before many eastern and southern Europeans had arrived—and barred immigrants from Asia. Those rigid quotas persisted until 1965, when Congress reformed the system to prioritise family connections and skilled labour.
The maze was so small that people got lost looking *for* it.