New White House chief of staff Stephen Miller will be a key player in whether any bipartisan immigration deal gets done or is even seriously talked about as the Trump administration adjusts to the new normal of big Democratic congressional majorities.
The selection of Miller, an immigration hard-liner, as a replacement for former chief of staff Susie Wiles seemed like it was full speed ahead on deportations.
But just days later, 60 Minutes released an interview in which President Donald Trump conceded that his immigration crackdown had possibly gone too far and that he would be interested in a deal with Democrats on the issue.
“I think it both helped and hurt,” Trump said of how his handling of immigration affected the midterm elections. “I think you would agree that I get an A+ for [border security]. For getting people out, I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out. But I got hurt because we also took people that had good jobs — that created one violation, or breaking of the law, and that was that they came into the country illegally.”
“Now, there is a large part of the country that thinks they should be put out,” Trump added. “And there’s a large part of the country that thinks they should be allowed to stay, if they’re good people working in a landscaping company, or working in a hotel, or doing something, right? And in some cases, paying taxes. And there’s a large group of people who think that they should be allowed to stay.”
Miller has historically been in the first group Trump mentions, the “large part of the country that thinks they should be put out.” Nearly every Democrat in Congress is part of the second, the “people who think that they should be allowed to stay.”
“I’d love to do something on immigration,” Trump said at the beginning of the conversation when asked where he thought he might be able to work with the incoming Democratic Congress.
Trump later denied that this meant amnesty, but so have most supporters of legalizing illegal immigrants since Republicans felt burned by approving amnesty in exchange for more enforcement under Ronald Reagan in 1986.
Since then, proponents of amnesty have preferred euphemisms such as “comprehensive immigration reform” or “pathway to citizenship” that emphasize the conditions attached to legalization and policy concessions to border hawks.
Miller has been in the trenches against proposed amnesties that are never described by their supporters as amnesties since he fought the 2013 Gang of Eight deal as an aide to Jeff Sessions, who was then a Republican senator from Alabama fighting against the party’s permissive immigration consensus.
That consensus was upended by Trump, with a major assist from Miller. Trumpworld rebuffed a half-hearted attempt to revive it through a compromise bill introduced by Sen. James Lankford (R-OH) during the 2024 campaign.
Miller would have a leading place at the table in negotiating any immigration deal with congressional Democrats as Trump’s chief of staff.
His knowledge of the issue and attention to legislative detail, as well as his contentious relationship with Democratic lawmakers, would allow him to effectively veto a Gang of Eight-like deal. Miller would at a minimum advise Trump against anything that doesn’t reduce illegal immigration.
But Miller is also a Trump loyalist with a specific view of his new job. He told Vanity Fair last year that staffers are supposed to be “implementing the president’s vision, the president’s directions, the president’s agenda, the president’s plans for the future. … We’re just here on his behalf to see that that is done.”
Putting the MAGA coalition back together again after the midterm wipeout is a Miller priority. Yet if there was an immigration deal, who better to try to sell it to these voters than Miller?
The exit polls largely seem to bear out Trump’s analysis of immigration politics. There is a tension between border security, which the public wants, and interior enforcement, especially against illegal immigrants who haven’t committed violent offenses, about which the public is ambivalent. Republicans want strong immigration controls, while Democrats are much more lenient.
Voters who listed immigration as their top issue broke 89% to 10% for Republicans. More than a third of the electorate considered immigration crucial and 57% of them voted Republican. Those who regarded it as either crucial or major voted 51% Republican. Voters narrowly preferred the Republican Party (43%) to the Democratic Party (41%) on dealing with immigration, which was better than the GOP did on most other major issues.
At the same time, 60% disapproved of how Immigration and Customs Enforcement was doing its job to 40% who approved. Nearly twice as many strongly disapproved (50%) as strongly approved (26%). Voters who considered immigration a major factor in their vote, but not crucial, went for the Democrats by 53% to 46%. Of those who thought it was a minor factor or nonfactor, 76% went Democratic.
TRUMP YIELDS ON IMMIGRATION ENFORCEMENT
Trump and congressional Democrats failed to arrive at an immigration compromise after the 2018 blue wave election made Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) speaker again. Ross Douthat, who conducted the 60 Minutes Trump interview, noted Miller’s role even earlier in his New York Times column.
The piece was titled “The Necessity of Stephen Miller.”