Greg Sargent, in un lungo articolo su New Republic,  esamina le proposte anti-immigrazione e anti-profughi di Stephen Miller (consigliere per la sicurezza nazionale dell’attuale amministrazione Trump), analizza la storia e ideologia da cui derivano e lo scostamento delle attuali misure rispetto alle politiche repubblicane del passato.

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“… Miller is feverishly stamping out every single avenue for those fleeing horrific conditions to come here legally that he possibly can. Republican presidents have traditionally set refugee admissions levels much higher than Trump has in both his terms, and TPS (Temporary Protected Status)  was signed into law by a Republican president, George H.W. Bush. In functionally ending all this, Miller is breaking with a consensus that has largely been bipartisan for decades.”

Grange sostiene il messaggio di Miller sia contrario ai valori occidentali a cui lo stesso Miller si appella:

“ Miller has long harbored particular venom for “cosmopolitanism.” He draws heavily on a tradition on the far right that treats cosmopolitanism as a threat to a model of Western civilization constructed upon the building blocks of ancient nations whose volkish identities stretch deep into the mists of the past.

But our understanding of cosmopolitanism is itself partly an inheritance from Miller’s beloved “Western civilization.” It originated with the Stoic philosophers of the ancient world and was developed by the Roman statesman Cicero. It passed via him and others to European philosophers like Immanuel Kant, who elaborated on it further. Its conception of common humanity informed the human rights ideals that emerged after World War II, which the United States signed on to.

In short, there are plenty of resources in our “Western inheritance” that run directly counter to, and are far more admirable than, Miller’s ideology of ethno-nationalist self-preservation. The 1965 immigration act that Miller hates so much—by ending the idea that some ethnicities are more “fit” to be American than others—itself carried forward some of those “Western” inheritances.”

Per Sargent le azioni di ICE volute da Miller presentano, oltre ai problemi etici, potenziali problemi sociali e economici:

“…Miller’s alternative is a horror. He has set in motion a vicious math problem: His deportation machinery is arresting people faster than they are being removed. To hold them, he’s now looking to build out a network of vast warehouses. We’re going to end up with a massively expanded immigrant carceral state at an enormous costto all of us, both in taxpayer dollars and in the searing social conflict that Miller’s masked storm troopers have unleashed on the streets of U.S. cities.”

Stephen Miller, discendente di immigrati ebrei russi, conta membri della sua stessa famiglia tra i suoi più severi oppositori. Alisa Kasmer, cugina dalla parte del padre, discute con l’autore dell’articolo cosa l’ha spinta a scrivere un lungo post contro le azioni di ICE e  Miller:

“ We’re Jewish—we grew up knowing how hated we were just for existing,” Kasmer told me. “Now he’s trying to take away the exact thing that his own family benefited from: that ability to create a life for themselves, to prosper, to build community, to have successful businesses—to live a rewarding life.” This—not “saving” our “dying” country, as Miller absurdly claims Trump is doing—will be Miller’s ugly legacy.  “