The White House is gearing up for a big fight this summer with the Democratic party’s open borders lobby, says Stephen Miller, senior adviser to President Donald Trump.
In an exclusive, hour-long interview with Breitbart News, Miller describes a Trump administration that has a clear strategy heading into this year’s midterm elections.
On Immigration Leading the Midterms
As Breitbart News has reported, GOP midterm voters and swing voters have consistently ranked immigration as the most important issue to them, with the majority favoring Trump’s plan to reduce legal immigration levels to raise Americans’ wages.
Miller hints that Trump is in sync with his base of supporters and Independents who see reducing immigration as a driving factor in the midterm elections.
“The big fight this summer is going to be with the open borders Democratic caucus in Congress,” Miller tells Breitbart News.
“That is the fundamental political contrast and political debate that is unfolding right now. The Democratic party is at grave risk of completely marginalizing itself from the American voters by continuing to lean into its absolutist anti-enforcement positions.”
The most recent example, Miller says, is when Democrats and pundits in the establishment media defended the violent El Salvadorian MS-13 gang after Trump called the group “animals.”
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said in response to Trump’s attack on MS-13 that voters should question whether the president believes “in the spark of divinity, the dignity, and worth of every person.”
“You saw members of the Democratic Party and the media leaping to the defense of the gang that is engaged in the most vile, dehumanizing, and egregious actions,” Miller said.
Last year, the White House began a campaign to end the process known as “chain migration” – whereby newly naturalized citizens can bring an unlimited number of foreign relatives to the U.S. – and eliminate the Diversity Visa Lottery, which randomly imports 50,000 foreign nationals every year.
Miller says this plan to reduce legal immigration levels is a “vital necessity.”
“Once upon a time, it might have been sufficient for those who want immigration security to say simply that all that is required is to enforce the law that exists and nothing more,” Miller says. “The reality is that those laws have become so riddled with special interest loopholes…”
On the American Worker
While Miller touches on the GOP’s tax cuts that were passed and signed by Trump late last year, calling the reform plan a “major focus heading into the midterms,” he focuses much of the Breitbart News interview on Trump’s key constituent: The American worker.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is expected to once again allow the business lobby to import an additional 15,000 low-skilled foreign nonagricultural workers to take blue collar jobs. The same was done last year by then-DHS Secretary John Kelly.
Miller says, though, that the Trump administration has made headway in bureaucratically reducing the number of foreign guest workers imported to the U.S. to take American jobs.
In 2016, former President Obama gave work permits to about 2.3 million foreign guest workers. In 2017, under Trump’s direction, about 300,000 of those work permits were slashed.
Miller’s focus then shifts to the H-1B visa program, where outsourcing firms and massive conglomerates import thousands of foreign workers every year to take coveted, high-paying U.S. white collar jobs. In the last decade alone, more than 2.6 million H-1B workers have been approved to enter the country.
The H-1B issue is particularly potent as the group of 250 American workers who were fired from Disney and forced to train their H-1B foreign replacements recently made headlines when they announced they were dropping their lawsuit against the corporation.
Many of those fired Disney workers campaigned for Trump, as he committed to ending the abuses of the H-1B visa program that has displaced thousands of Americans.
Miller tells Breitbart News that “there is more to come” on the reform package currently being worked on by the Trump administration. The plan is being devised by Lee Francis Cissna, the director of the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) agency.
“It is impossible to overstate the extent to which the President of the United States is the leader that fate has correctly put at this moment in time to advocate for the American people and the American nation,” Miller says of Trump.
On the Omnibus Spending Bill
The moment Trump came closest to betraying his commitments with his supporters was his signing of the recent omnibus spending bill, which barred the president from using his preferred border wall prototypes to construct a wall, did not fully fund a border wall, and increased the Catch and Release program.
Despite these inadequacies, Miller calls the omnibus spending bill “enormously successful.”
Miller’s reasoning on the omnibus spending bill is that it allowed Trump to somewhat fund a border wall — even if it is the same style fencing that Obama used at the border — and increase defense spending without having to give into a concession on amnesty for the illegal aliens enrolled and eligible for the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
“In addition to funding the border wall with no concessions, you are building into the budget baseline the end of the defense sequester and the rebuilding of the U.S. military,” Miller says. “Which we know from history, the best way to stay out of war and stay out of conflict is to have a posture of great strength at home.”
“The omnibus was a major success and a major victory because we built into the baseline more defense spending and more border wall funding without having to make any concessions on issues like DACA or otherwise,” Miller continues.
When asked if Trump will veto a future spending bill that does not fully fund a border wall, Miller simply replies, “The president’s words speak for themselves.”
Trump has pledged to his supporters not to sign a spending bill that resembles the omnibus.
On Trump Inside the White House
The establishment media often depict Trump’s White House as a chaotic mess wherein the president is unaware of protocol, staffers go rogue, and decisions are made on a whim.
Contesting these accusations, Miller gives insight to Breitbart News as to the inner workings of Trump’s negotiating skills.
Miller says in a long response to a question:
“I have the luxury sometimes of being able to get a behind-the-scenes look and when the president is in meetings whether it be with foreign governments, his own cabinet, Congress, etc. that he is constantly bringing the conversation back to ‘What did I promise the voters I was going to do? What’s the right thing for the American worker? What’s the right thing for the country? What’s the right thing for the American taxpayer?’
“And if somebody comes in and they don’t have their answers straight or their facts straight or they’re not — in the case of a person within our own government — if they’re not advocating strongly enough for the American worker, then the president will let them know that in no uncertain terms.”
Miller says Trump has “ironclad control” over the details of debates in the Oval Office and calls him the “dominant presence in the room.”
“If you look at how right he’s been about so many things for so long for so many years, going back decades, it is remarkable the extent to which he is so much more vastly sophisticated and has such a greater depth and grasp of the issues and their nuances than the defeatist, critical voices that are trying to argue with this administration’s inarguable success,” Miller says.
“You can see those incredible boardroom talents put into action to serve the interest of the American worker and taxpayer … it’s really a sight to behold,” Miller concludes.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter at @JxhnBinder.
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