A particularly infamous former official from the Trump administration, Stephen Miller, has recently announced that he aims to use his new role in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) as an avenue to deport Palestinians from the United States. Stephen Miller is a known white supremacist who has also recently drawn attention by his role in the recent US Capitol insurrection.
Miller has long been outspoken about his anti-immigrant positions, and during his time in the Trump White House he orchestrated some of the most restrictive immigration policies, such as the implementation of a “zero-tolerance” policy at the US-Mexico border.
Now, he is looking to extend his campaign of hateful and exclusionary policies further to deport Palestinians from the country. Miller is using his position in the OMB to seek to end the “Deferred Enforced Departure” (DED) program – a program that has granted Palestinians the ability to stay in the US since the 1990s as the US did not recognize the state of Palestine.
By ending this program, Palestinians living in the US would be denied their proper status as refugees and would be consequently deported as unwanted aliens. Miller has denounced Palestinians as a “threat” to US security and a “burden” on society, language that is a blatant attack on Palestinians’ humanity and is grounded in racism.
This recent announcement of Miller’s has been met with significant backlash all throughout the US, as his call to deport Palestinians is clearly a violation of human rights. Moreover, many see this as rooted in Miller’s white supremacist ideology and view this as another example of the Trump administration’s toxic legacy.
