In the wake of Democrats’ sweeping midterm election victories, where the party will take control of both the House and Senate in January, President Trump responded by appointing his hardline Homeland Security adviser Stephen Miller as White House chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles.
Miller is one of the most influential architects of Trump’s second term agenda. He advocatedd for the violent ICE and Department of Homeland Security mass deportation tactics, family separation, ending birthright citizenship, attacks on DEI, ending asylum and refugee protections, deploying National Guard and U.S. military troops to U.S. cities, launching deadly military strikes against suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean, and the prosecution of the president’s political opponents.
As immigrant rights advocates pursue legal challenges to the administration’s lawless mass deportation and detention policies, they’re also pressuring the newly-elected Congress to defend due process and advance comprehensive immigration reform. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Kica Matos, president of the National Immigration Law Center, one of the nation’s leading advocacy organizations defending immigrant rights. Here she responds to Stephen Miller’s appointment as Trump’s chief of staff, and shares her views on what congressional Democrats should prioritize to rein in the administration’s lawless and violent ICE deportation operation.
KIKA MATOS: Talk about not reading the room and not getting the memo post-elections, midterm elections. One of the key issues across racial lines was immigration. What were the issues that people voted on? They voted on cost of living, they voted on jobs, they voted on housing, and they voted on immigration, including ICE’s brutal enforcement policies. Racially, it cut across communities of color, African American, Asian American, Native Americans, Latinos, all of them, one of their top six areas of concern was immigration. It was one of the top 10 for white folks. Across all racial groups, there was a stinging indictment of ICE and all Americans want ICE to be stopped. The majority of Americans want ICE to be stopped and they won the $240 billion that Congress gave them for enforcement to be clawed back. There was some level of hope and optimism coming out of the elections and people felt that the administration would have no choice but to really listen to the American people.
And then on Friday, we learned that Stephen Miller was appointed chief of staff. Stephen Miller is by far the most extreme anti-immigrant person in the White House. He is the architect of the enforcement policies. He’s the one that pushed for ICE to have a quota of 3,000 arrests every day. He was the architect of the efforts to revoke birthright citizenship. He threatened to suspend habeas corpus. He seemed to be supportive of the invocation of the Insurrection Act, which would mean that the military would be engaging in civilian enforcement. All of the terrible policies that we have seen being rolled out in the last few years and under Trump 1.0 could all be credited to Stephen Miller. And so while there is hope and optimism in a number of areas for the next two years, immigration is certainly not one of them. If anything, we expect that this administration is going to double down and brutalize more immigrants and push for more unconstitutional actions than ever before.
SCOTT HARRIS: Well, Kika, as you just said, there is every reason to believe that Stephen Miller and Trump will escalate their immigration crackdown, possibly including greater use of the military and further violation of constitutional rights. What proactive measures can be taken to challenge this agenda by the incoming Democratic-controlled House and Senate and regular people across the country?
KIKA MATOS: Yeah, look, the people spoke and the people acted and we the people need to continue to speak out and we need to continue to wrap our arms around vulnerable immigrants. We need to continue to make sure that the people that have been elected into office listen to the voices and the desires of we, the people. But in addition, my understanding is that there are going to be some efforts on the part of Democrats to move forward two separate things. One is they’re going to ramp up their efforts around oversight and accountability. Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal is going to be the chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and she has already stated her intentions to engage in level of oversight and accountability. So we should expect to see a number of hearings around issues, including the ways that ICE has engaged in levels of lawlessness and brutality that we haven’t seen before.
So we will see some of that. There’s also going to be an effort to try to advance immigration legislation that includes a path to citizenship. And for those who were watching 60 Minutes, there was a glimmer of hope when the president said that he would support legislation that would include citizenship for undocumented people. And then today, of course, he walked that back. But the role that Congress can play is really critical, including also in clawing back the $250 billion that they set aside for enforcement this year.
For more information, visit the National Immigration Law Center at nilc.org.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Kika Matos (18:17) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. To subscribe to our podcasts, email newsletters, our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack or social media, subscribe here.
