Stephen Miller, the influential White House official spearheading much of the Trump administration’s immigration agenda, was reportedly so widely disliked during his earlier time on Capitol Hill that Republican staffers invented a rumor he liked to play with porcelain dolls to embarrass him.
Such mockery hasn’t subsided since Miller left the office of then-Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama to join the Trump camp, with the president allegedly gossiping about Miller behind his back over his intense and awkward manner, according to a new report.
These claims come from an in-depth Rolling Stone profile of Miller, Trump’s deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser, which paints a picture of the California native as a powerful force inside the administration, acting as the shadow boss of supposedly independent agencies like the Justice Department and Department of Homeland Security.
Elsewhere in the article, Trump officials and Republicans told the magazine Miller is known internally by nicknames like “the REAL Attorney General” and “President Miller” for his wide-ranging portfolio.
The White House has denied most of the claims made in the piece.
Miller has guided the White House on its most controversial initiatives, such as building immigration detention camps around the country, sending the military and masked ICE agents into Democrat-led cities, and invoking the Alien Enemies Act to summarily deport alleged gang members.
In another episode described in the profile, a childhood friend of Miller’s claims the future politico cut ties because of his “Latin heritage.”
It’s not the first time Miller has been accused of childhood animosity towards Latinos.
As a kid, Miller would allegedly tell Spanish speakers at his diverse Southern California high school to learn English or go back to their home countries, according to reporter Jean Guerrero’s book Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, And The White Nationalist Agenda.
Now that Miller is back in the White House, Miller has reportedly berated immigration officials and insisted they arrest 3,000 immigrants a day, even if it means making random stops in Home Depot parking lots. (The administration has denied in court that it has formal immigration detention quotas.)
The Republican has also brushed off stories of families being divided by the immigration crackdown as “sob stories” meant to emotionally “blackmail” people, according to the Rolling Stone piece.
More than 60 percent of those arrested by ICE in July had no U.S. criminal convictions, according to the Deportation Data Project. (Illegal immigration on its own is generally a civil offense, not a criminal one.)
