Trump Picks Stephen Miller As Deputy Chief of Staff For Policy

Stephen Miller, formerly a senior advisor in President-Elect Donald Trump’s first term, has been named as the White House deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security advisor.

On Wednesday, Trump announced Miller’s new role, along with Dan Scavino as an assistant to the president and a deputy chief of staff, James Blair as deputy chief of staff for legislative, political and public affairs and Taylor Budowich as deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel. 

“Dan, Stephen, James, and Taylor were ‘best in class’ advisors on my winning campaign, and I know they will honorably serve the American people in the White House,” Trump said in a statement. “They will continue to work hard to Make America Great Again in their respective new roles.”

Though Miller is perhaps best known as the chief architect of Trump’s hardlined immigration policy during his first term — including the controversial executive order banning travelers from Muslim-majority countries from coming to the U.S. — he’s spent the last four years using the legal system to attack voting rights across the county. 

In April 2021, Miller launched America First Legal (AFL), a legal organization aimed at challenging progressive policies in the courts. Since then, the group has filed dozens of legal actions challenging Biden administration policies and corporations who champion civil rights, LGBTQ rights, abortion rights and other progressive causes. But among its overwhelming flurry of legal actions, AFL has made a name for itself trying to disenfranchise voters and roll back voting rights. 

Since 2022, AFL filed five anti-voting lawsuits in Arizona and Pennsylvania in an attempt to disenfranchise voters. The two Pennsylvania lawsuits were filed in the 2022 midterm election cycle and challenged the use of drop boxes in Chester and Lehigh Counties. In the 2024 election cycle, AFL tried to disenfranchise voters in Arizona by challenging election administration policies in counties across the state and to get a court to purge voters in Maricopa County, alleging that noncitizen voters were illegally registered to vote. 

While Miller’s new role will, once again, find him in a direct position to shape the country’s policy, immigration experts and advocates are rightly raising the alarm about the hardened policies Miller is likely to push. In a recent Fox News interview, Miller said that a second Trump administration would have a “tenfold” increase in deportation and that “they begin on Inauguration Day, as soon as he takes the oath of office.”