Stephen Miller is calling on Americans to side with the president against a cabal of “communist” judges who are supposedly determined to keep “terrorists” in the country.
During an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity, President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff claimed undocumented immigrants were a “clear and present danger” to national security, and yet federal judges are “telling President Trump he can’t deport these threats from our community.”
“This is the choice facing every American: Either we all side and get behind President Trump to remove these terrorists from our communities, or we let a rogue, radical-left judiciary shut down the machinery of our national security apparatus,” he said.
The president faces opposition from “communist left-wing judges,” he added.
In fact, even hardline conservatives have opposed the president’s efforts to deport migrants without due process.
The president invoked the wartime Alien Enemies Act on March 15 and abruptly sent about 250 Venezuelan migrants and a handful of Salvadorans—including the wrongly deported Maryland dad Kilmar Abrego Garcia—to El Salvador’s CECOT mega prison.
The administration said the Venezuelans were members of the Tren de Aragua gang, which Trump’s State Department has designated as an international terrorist organization.
But legal filings and press reports have since revealed that at least one alleged Venezuelan “gang member” had already been granted legal refugee status in the U.S. Others included a pro soccer player, a gay makeup artist, a 26-year-old barber, and a 24-year-old father—all with no criminal records in the U.S. and all formally seeking asylum.
The Supreme Court unanimously agreed earlier this month that the Alien Enemies Act deportees were “entitled to notice and an opportunity to challenge their removal,” but ruled in a 5-4 split that the deportations under the 1798 law could continue.
Trump appointees Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh signed on to that decision, while his other appointee Amy Coney Barrett joined the liberal justices in a blistering dissent that called for the deportations to be temporarily stopped altogether.
The court also ruled unanimously on April 10 that the U.S. government must “facilitate Abrego Garcia’s release from custody in El Salvador.”
Despite the ruling, Trump administration officials have claimed they can’t force El Salvador to release Abrego Garcia, and they’ve refused to say what steps they are taking to try to bring him home.
A federal appellate court ruled last week that Trump’s top officials—including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi—must provide sworn testimony in the case.
In a scathing opinion by Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, a Ronald Reagan appointee, the court said that Trump “is asserting a right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without the semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order.”
He noted that Trump had told Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele that he wants to send “homegrown criminals” to CECOT next.
“If today the Executive claims the right to deport without due process and in disregard of court orders, what assurance will there be tomorrow that it will not deport American citizens and then disclaim responsibility to bring them home?” Wilkinson wrote in his ruling.
The judge is a staunch conservative whose previous notable opinions include upholding a controversial Virginia abortion ban and supporting the government’s right to indefinitely detain American citizens during wartime.
“President Trump will make this nation safer than ever before, and he’ll do it over the fighting and opposition of the Democrat party, over the fighting and opposition of the communist left-wing judges,” Miller said.
