Stephen Miller Is Exploiting the Coronavirus Crisis for His Immigration Crackdown

By Eric Lutz, Vanity Fair

17 April 20

Trump’s senior adviser is reportedly pushing to leave immigrant children in the custody of border patrol for an extended period.

or all the worst people in the United States government, the coronavirus crisis has been something of an opportunity. Republican lawmakers used the pandemic to give another gift to their billionaire buddies. Donald Trump has exploited the national emergency to take his autocratic fantasies to the next level and further erode democratic norms. And now, it seems, the White House’s resident anti-immigrant zealot is getting in on the action.

According to Politico, Stephen Miller has enjoyed a resurgence during the COVID pandemic, using the chaos wrought by the deadly virus as cover to once again push his pet anti-immigrant policies at the Department of Health and Human Services. According to the outlet, the Office of Refugee Resettlement is becoming a tool for Miller and others in the Trump administration, who are pushing to “delay placing migrant children in shelters operated by the health department, which would instead leave those children in the custody of the border patrol for an extended length of time,” Politico’s Daniel Diamond reported:

Refugee office leaders are reviewing the policy of allowing undocumented immigrant adults to take custody of refugee children—a longstanding practice that dates back to the George W. Bush administration but has been opposed by Miller and other anti-immigration hardliners, who think it rewards adults who are in the country illegally, officials said.

The office also is pushing to resume fingerprinting all of the adults in households where refugee children are released. HHS had rejected that policy in December 2018 for being ineffective and slowing down operations, and two officials said it could make some sponsors less likely to step forward to take custody of the children. But the policy has been championed by Miller and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials, who historically have used the fingerprints to expedite deportations.

Miller, a senior adviser to Trump, has been a driving force in the administration’s anti-immigrant agenda, including in the horrific family separation policy that created a firestorm for the White House two years ago. The ORR had been at the center of that policy, and in 2018 HHS Secretary Alex Azar reassigned officials in the office. But Jonathan Hayes, who had overseen the office’s work ever since, was abruptly reassigned last month and replaced by Heidi Stirrup, a Trump loyalist, who now appears to be using the office to enforce Miller and the president’s immigration crackdown. “There’s been a separation historically between the enforcement and human services side,” Bob Carey, who led the ORR under Barack Obama, told Politico. “But the history on this is not particularly good in the last few years, under this administration.”

So far, Miller’s attempts to use the pandemic as cover haven’t gotten quite as much attention as Trump’s, who has carried out a purge of officials meant to serve as checks on his power and asserted his “total” authority as president. But that could change, particularly as the news cycle evens out, and focus shifts to the ways in which the administration has hidden behind coronavirus while it works away in other areas. “It’s only a matter of time before the situation blows up again like it did in 2018,” an administration official told Politico. “It’s a team of people with very little management experience and an agenda that isn’t going to end well given the current laws.” “The White House wants ORR to be an immigration enforcement office,” another official said. “That’s not its role.”