After a barrage of potential cabinet picks for the second Trump Administration in the past week, one is particularly concerning; his expected pick for deputy chief of staff for policy, Stephen Miller. Miller served as Trump’s senior policy adviser and White House director of speechwriting during his first term, but being handed more power almost certainly carries more detrimental effects for minorities across the board in America.
Stephen Miller is a notorious anti-immigration herald, in addition to being an outspoken white nationalist. He’s advocated for separating immigrant families, putting National Guard and U.S. Armed Forces members on the southern border, and building camps to house deportees in (à la Nazi). At Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally in October, Miller spoke, saying “America is for Americans and Americans only.” He’s the founder of America First Legal, a firm he describes as “the answer to the ACLU” that initially contributed to Project 2025—The firm requested in July that it be removed from the advisory board after the document grew controversial in the public eye. America First Legal drafted much of the legislation within the document, including a policy looking to criminalize the shipment of abortion pills (mifepristone and misoprostol).
In addition to his heinous anti-immigration politics, Miller is also connected to a slew of anti-queer, anti-trans, and anti-woman rhetoric, as well as legal actions, which could speak to his future in an office that oversees the policymakers within the bureaucracy of the White House. He was behind quite a bit of anti-trans advertising that occurred prior to the 2022 midterm election, paying for a grotesque amount of radio ads and sending pamphlets to homes that said Democrats were trying to indoctrinate the youth, warning of sterilization, removal of “healthy genitals,” and “radical and irreversible gender experiments” on children.
Clearly, for anyone educated on the topic of gender-affirming care, this is nothing more than blatantly false misinformation and fearmongering—However, for those who may not have access to factual information with regard to trans healthcare, this is a terrifying proposition. He also filed a complaint with the EEOC in 2023 against Kellogg’s, saying that Pride-themed food items such as Pop-Tarts and Cheez-Its, were an attempt to “politicize and sexualize their products” that were directly aimed at children.
America First Legal sued the Biden Administration, along with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, over trans-inclusive policy additions to Title IX earlier this year that looked to protect the rights of trans students in schools. When asked his stance on the policy as the founder of the firm, Miller attempted to disguise his bigotry as defense of women, saying, “Biden’s new Title IX regulation is a vile obscenity: It forces women and girls to share locker rooms and restrooms with men. It forces them to call a he, a she, and to pretend in every way that a man is a woman, humiliating, degrading, and erasing women.”
His thoughts on protecting women when it comes to bathroom usage, however, don’t seem to extend to their bodily autonomy; his firm and Attorney General Paxton also attempted to allow the University of Texas to punish students who went to other states seeking abortions.
All in all and quite unfortunately, Miller’s policies when it comes to minorities in America are likely why he was selected for such a prominent position in Trump’s cabinet. To read further on what we can expect for our rights with the second Trump Administration, read here.
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