It was May 2025, a few months into the second Trump administration, and Stephen Miller, the right-wing populist powering the White House crackdown on immigration, was clearly frustrated.
President Trump had talked about arresting “the worst of the worst” of undocumented immigrants — the rapists, killers and other criminals he had emphasized during the previous year’s campaign. Mr. Miller, however, had long pushed for removing anyone who had entered the country illegally.
So when Mr. Miller arrived one day last spring at the headquarters of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for an update from agency leaders, an official raised a question on many agents’ minds: Who exactly should they be going after?
Mr. Miller was unequivocal, according to three people with knowledge of the meeting. Agents should not limit themselves to dangerous criminals. Instead, they should stop people with the lowest level of reasonable suspicion, and detain anyone in the country illegally, with warrantless arrests. His message was clear: Push the limits.
Eight months later, Mr. Miller did something startling — he backpedaled.
His demands had helped set in motion militarized operations on the streets of Democratic-run cities, intensified by immigration agents killing two U.S. citizens protesting in Minneapolis. After initially denouncing one of the slain protesters, an intensive care nurse, as a would-be assassin, Mr. Miller offered a rare concession that immigration authorities might have made a mistake.
Now, Mr. Miller, 40, one of the most influential presidential advisers in recent memory and an unabashed champion of Mr. Trump’s hard-line immigrant crackdown, is at a crossroads. He faces questions about how aggressively he can continue to drive the deportation campaign, and how much appetite his party and the country have for tactics that proved successful in helping to boost arrests of immigrants but reignited a polarizing debate over what it means to be American.
The administration has toned down its immigration strategy. Federal agents have drawn down from the streets of major cities, and Kristi Noem, the homeland security secretary who had become the face of the policy, is out. Mr. Miller even pulled back his public appearances for a time.
But there is little sense inside the administration that Mr. Miller has lost his standing with Mr. Trump.
Far from acknowledging defeat, Mr. Miller appears to have simply adjusted his strategy in an effort to minimize political fallout. He has remained steadfast in his view that the administration should act to reverse an openness to migration that he has called “the single largest experiment on a society, on a civilization, that has ever been conducted in human history.”
This account of Mr. Miller’s role in the White House and his influence over one of the more far-reaching deportation crackdowns in recent decades is based on interviews with more than two dozen current and former administration officials, local representatives and people who work with Mr. Miller or have knowledge of internal administration deliberations.
Mr. Miller, who holds the dual titles of deputy chief of staff for policy and homeland security adviser, continues to preside over regular calls with national security and immigration officials. He is pushing for new ways to squeeze the lives of undocumented immigrants and those with legal protections, such as making it harder to get public housing or other benefits, officials said. He has targeted those with refugee status, particularly Somalis, a group he has long derided.
He is also putting the finishing touches on a rule to block green cards for immigrants who might need public assistance, according to White House officials. The policy faced legal pushback during Mr. Trump’s first term and was lifted under President Joseph R. Biden Jr. Mr. Miller is focused on crafting the rule to survive in court.
He has pushed Republicans in Congress to resist ICE reforms backed by Democrats, while his team in the White House has helped carry out Mr. Trump’s directive to deploy ICE agents to airports. And Mr. Miller is focused on ramping up deportations of noncitizens to faraway countries, with the hopes of encouraging immigrants still in the United States to leave voluntarily.
In addition to his efforts on the federal level, Mr. Miller has worked with politicians in various Republican states to pass anti-immigrant laws. He raised with Texas lawmakers last month the idea of ending public education funding for undocumented children.
White House officials in recent weeks have said that Mr. Miller grew frustrated with Ms. Noem and the attention-grabbing approach to immigration operations endorsed by her and some of her top lieutenants. But there is little to no evidence that Mr. Miller pushed back against the aggressive tactics of agents that prompted bipartisan criticism.
In response to questions sent by The Times for Mr. Miller, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said that he remained part of the president’s inner circle.
“Stephen is a trusted and deeply loyal adviser to President Trump and has been critical to the realization of the president’s historic first year in office,” Ms. Leavitt said in a statement. “Stephen has demonstrated great effectiveness and exceptional capability in every one of the president’s policy initiatives.”
Mr. Miller has blamed many of the country’s problems on a landmark 1965 law that paved the way for more Hispanic and Asian immigrants, a shift from primarily allowing in Europeans.
Despite decades of data showing that immigrants outperform native-born Americans on major indicators, including crime rates and use of welfare, Mr. Miller contends that those who entered after the 1965 law, as well as their descendants, have largely been unsuccessful.
“If you bring those societies into our country and then give them unlimited free welfare, what do we think’s going to happen?” he told Fox News in December. “We need a moratorium on immigration from third world countries until we can heal ourselves as a nation.”
Mr. Miller’s meeting last May at ICE headquarters demonstrated how he has flexed his power, combining stern lectures to immigration enforcement officials with often brash public statements that amplify his directives.
In addition to telling ICE leaders behind closed doors to push the limits, Mr. Miller said on Fox News the same month that “we are looking to set a goal of a minimum of 3,000 arrests for ICE every day.”
The number was wildly ambitious. In the final year of the Biden administration, ICE had arrested about 300 people per day, according to federal data. After Mr. Trump had returned to the White House, arrests had roughly doubled, to about 600 per day. To meet Mr. Miller’s new target, arrests would need to grow fivefold.
Within weeks, the consequences of that push would become apparent. On the first Friday in June, soon after Mr. Miller dressed down ICE officials, the agency began arresting workers at a warehouse at the edge of Los Angeles’s fashion district. The next day, Mr. Trump ordered 2,000 members of the National Guard to the city.
On social media, the president laid out his strategy, pledging to rein in big cities that he called the “core of the Democrat Power Center.”
The crackdown on blue America had begun.
‘You Are Unleashed’
Mr. Miller’s instructions to ICE underscored his clout, even as he pursued policies that led to debates with some who outranked him.
Mr. Miller and Mr. Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, have debated how wide to “cast the net” on immigration enforcement, according to Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina and a Trump ally who has worked closely with both aides.
Mr. Graham said the two have had “moments of tension, but they work well together.” He said the conversation about immigration enforcement had centered on critical questions of “how far to go, what to do, when to do it” and what methods to use.
At times, Mr. Trump has appeared to rein in Mr. Miller and other immigration officials, particularly when enforcement has threatened business allies.
But the president for the most part has trusted Mr. Miller to pursue his immigration goals.
In September, after a video showed an ICE officer shoving a woman from Ecuador at a New York City immigration courthouse, department officials announced that the officer had been “relieved of his duties.”
The statement by the agency incensed Mr. Miller, according to two people familiar with the matter. The White House contacted Department of Homeland Security leaders and got the officer back to work.
Mr. Miller’s support for aggressive tactics was apparent when the administration announced the creation of a crime-focused task force in Memphis, an effort that would also involve rounding up undocumented immigrants. He joined Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi on a stage there last October, telling a crowd of law enforcement officers to dismantle criminal networks “without apology and without mercy.”
“I see the guns and badges in this room,” Mr. Miller said. “You are unleashed.”
Two Dead in Minneapolis
The turning point for Mr. Miller, and the administration as a whole, came as tensions boiled over in Minneapolis.
Mr. Miller had championed the administration’s focus on that city, particularly its large Somali population, part of which was being investigated for fraud involving federal benefits. He described Somalis as “pirates” who “come here and steal everything we have.”
When protests accelerated after the Jan. 7 fatal shooting by an ICE agent of Renee Good, Mr. Miller was unwavering in his support for federal agents. He wanted agents to arrest people he argued were interfering with enforcement operations, according to two officials familiar with the matter.
Around that time, he discussed with Mr. Trump invoking the Insurrection Act — a step that would allow the federal government to deploy active-duty troops inside the country, according to two administration officials. The act has not been used since 1992. Mr. Trump did not use it.
Soon after federal agents killed Alex Pretti, an intensive care nurse who was carrying a handgun for which he had a permit, Mr. Miller wrote on social media that Mr. Pretti was “a domestic terrorist” who had “tried to assassinate federal law enforcement.”
Video soon emerged contradicting that account. At a news conference the day after the shooting, Gregory Bovino, the Border Patrol official known for his cowboy-style aggression, offered a response notably more measured than Miller’s, saying it was too early to draw conclusions.
“That, folks, is why we have something called an investigation,” Mr. Bovino said.
Mr. Miller was confused why Mr. Bovino’s description did not align with his own, according to White House officials, who said Mr. Miller’s comments had been based on information from Border Patrol officials in Minneapolis.
Mr. Miller soon pulled back.
Three days after the shooting, he said in a statement that the White House had given “clear guidance” that federal personnel should create a barrier between protesters and officers making arrests. When Mr. Pretti was shot, federal agents “may not have been following that protocol,” he said.
In the days that followed, the president, concerned about the optics in Minneapolis, tried to soften the tone of his administration. Mr. Bovino was removed from his post overseeing the Minneapolis operation, replaced by Tom Homan, the White House border czar, who had long called for ICE to focus on targeted operations. Two and a half weeks later, on Feb. 12, Mr. Homan said the surge of federal agents to Minneapolis was ending.
Mr. Miller’s television appearances became less frequent, at least for a while. In the 12 months between Mr. Trump’s inauguration and the Pretti shooting, Mr. Miller was interviewed on Fox News an average of every four days. In February, after Mr. Pretti was killed, Mr. Miller went on the network just twice, according to media monitoring services. In March, he resumed his normal pace.
ICE began to shift from militarized street sweeps to a campaign of more targeted — and less visible — arrests. In February, the agency arrested roughly 11 percent fewer people per day than in January, according to internal government figures reviewed by The New York Times. It was the lowest level since last September, a drop driven in part by ICE arresting fewer immigrants without criminal records.
Mr. Miller also began to draw bipartisan criticism. “It’s Stephen Miller that’s been repeatedly responsible for embarrassment for the president of the United States by acting too quickly, speaking first and thinking later,” Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, told CNN last month.
Asked to respond to Mr. Tillis’s comments, the White House sent statements from 11 other Republican senators praising Mr. Miller for his work carrying out Mr. Trump’s agenda, including from Senator Rick Scott of Florida, who said that it was “more important now than ever to have fighters around President Trump like Stephen who can get things done.”
Rather than Mr. Miller seeing his power recede, he has moved to apply it in other ways, seeking policies that would pressure undocumented immigrants to leave on their own.
On his recent calls with immigration officials, for example, Mr. Miller has asked for information on how immigrants use credit cards, potentially as part of an effort to crack down on their ability to open accounts and spend money, according to officials with knowledge of the discussions.
Mr. Miller has also pursued changes affecting legal migrants, including refugees. He has continued to push ICE to work with the Justice Department to launch investigations into immigrants who illegally obtain public benefits.And he speaks frequently with Mr. Homan, who he has worked with to develop deportation strategies.
Mr. Miller’s influence has also extended beyond Washington.
In Tennessee, Republican state lawmakers have advanced a legislative package crafted in consultation with Mr. Miller that would harden immigration enforcement. It would require state or local officials to report people who receive services at hospitals, social service agencies and some public schools despite being in the country illegally. Officials who fail to report migrants improperly receiving benefits could face fines or even prison time.
The state’s Republican House speaker, Cameron Sexton, said he had discussed the legislation and other ideas in multiple conversations with Mr. Miller, including at the White House last year. Mr. Sexton described Mr. Miller as “a brilliant guy.”
Similar legislation has been introduced in Oklahoma by the state’s House speaker, Kyle Hilbert, who said in an interview that he had also met with Mr. Miller.
Mr. Miller’s immigration agenda continues to spread across the federal government.
Last month, he appeared with Vice President JD Vance in Washington to mark the start of what they billed as an anti-fraud campaign. Their remarks focused on migrants who illegally obtain public benefits, a theme the administration had hammered to help justify its armed buildup in Minneapolis.
Federal prosecutors in Minnesota have charged dozens of people in recent years with defrauding safety net programs designed to feed low-income children, treat minors with autism and help people at risk of homelessness. The vast majority of defendants are of Somali origin and several have been accused of using stolen funds to purchase luxury cars, homes and to invest in overseas ventures.
Mr. Miller appeared to seize on those cases to try stoking anger and resentment toward an immigrant community. He invited the audience to imagine a hard-working “native Minnesotan” worried about providing for his family, living next to a Somali refugee who does not work, fraudulently receives government assistance and drives a Mercedes.
“He just went to an office in the state, lied on a piece of paper and got unlimited free money forever, for life,” Mr. Miller said, citing no evidence for such a scenario.
Nicholas Nehamas, Ernesto Londoño and Albert Sun contributed reporting. Research was contributed by Sheelagh McNeill, Teresa Mondría Terol, Duy Nguyen and James O’Toole.
Zolan Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
The post Stephen Miller Is Still Pursuing His Immigration Agenda, but More Quietly appeared first on New York Times.
