If top White House advisor Stephen Miller does not resign voluntarily, President Donald Trump should immediately fire him.
"Stephen Miller is an avowed white supremacist whose sole purpose in the Trump administration is to normalize and institutionalize racist, anti-immigrant hate. He deserves no place in government."
--Heidi Hess, CREDO ActionThat is the straightforward message contained in a letter signed by 27 Democratic Senators and reportedly sent to the White House on Monday. The effort behind the letter was led by Sen. Kamala Harris of California and among the signatories are 2020 presidential candidates Cory Booker, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Michael Bennet.
Citing the top White House aide's history of bigoted behaviors and policy proposals--as well as damning reporting last month detailing his allegiance to white nationalist ideologies--the letter states, "Simply put, Mr. Miller is unfit to serve in any capacity at the White House, let alone as a senior policy adviser."
It is far from the first time that demands have gone up for Miller to either resign or be removed from his top White House post.
As the Huffington Post, which first obtained and reported on the letter, reports:
The letter adds to growing and prolonged pressure on the White House to get rid of Miller, the aide credited with developing the Trump administration's brutal anti-immigrant policies.
Nearly one month ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center published a series of blockbuster reports analyzing 900 emails Miller sent to the far-right website Breitbart from 2015 to 2016, when he was working as an aide to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.). The emails show Miller actively shaping Breitbart stories related to race and immigration, encouraging editors and writers at the publication to draw inspiration from explicitly white supremacist websites like VDare.
At one point Miller suggested that Breitbart write about "The Camp of Saints," a fascist French novel that depicts feces-eating brown people taking over Europe.
With such reports confirming Miller has "advanced white nationalist, anti-immigrant ideologies," the Senators told Trump in their letter, "Continuing to employ him as the senior architect of your immigration policies ensures that those policies discriminate against individuals of color to advance white nationalist ideals. He must be removed."
Also on Monday, a group of civil rights and progressive advocacy groups--including CREDO Action, Presente, United We Dream, Bend the Arc Jewish Action, and others--launched a joint petition campaign to call for Miller's ouster.
"Stephen Miller is an avowed white supremacist whose sole purpose in the Trump administration is to normalize and institutionalize racist, anti-immigrant hate. He deserves no place in government," said CREDO Action co-director Heidi Hess. "We applaud Sen. Harris' efforts and encourage Congress to go even further. Both chambers should pass resolutions condemning Miller's racism and his position in the White House as the architect of Trump's discriminatory immigration policies which terrorize and harm Black and Brown immigrant communities."
