President-elect Donald Trump is expected to announce in the coming days that Stephen Miller, his top immigration adviser, will serve as White House deputy chief of staff for policy, two sources familiar with the plans told CNN.
Miller, who served as a senior adviser to Trump and was his lead speechwriter during his first administration, has been a leading advocate for a more restrictive immigration policy and is expected to take on an expanded role in the president-elect’s second term. He’s been closely involved in Trump’s transition process and will have a key role in future staffing decisions. During the campaign, he frequently traveled to rallies with Trump on his private plane and was increasingly visible as a speaker at events in recent months.
Miller is also a lead architect of the president-elect’s plans for mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. He has said that a second Trump administration would seek a tenfold increase in the number of deportations to more than 1 million per year. In an interview on Fox News last week, Miller expressed eagerness at the prospect of beginning mass deportations as soon as possible.
“They begin on Inauguration Day, as soon as he takes the oath of office,” he said.
Asked about the expected announcement, Trump spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told CNN, “President-elect Trump will begin making decisions on who will serve in his second administration soon. Those decisions will be announced when they are made.”
A longtime hardliner on immigration, Miller was instrumental in setting up immigration restrictions during the first Trump administration, advocating for child separation in migrant detention facilities and a travel ban targeting people from majority-Muslim countries.
After Trump left office, Miller started an advisory group called America First Legal, which went on to contribute to Project 2025, the sweeping conservative blueprint for the next Republican president created by the Heritage Foundation. On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly distanced himself from Project 2025, claiming that he had no idea who was behind it, despite its close ties to Miller and other crucial figures in Trump’s orbit.
In an interview with The New York Times last year, Miller said that under a second Trump term, the military would build detention centers to house immigrants who have been arrested and are facing deportation. The new camps would likely be built “on open land in Texas near the border,” he told The Times.
Miller told The Times that Trump’s immigration plans are being designed to avoid having to create new substantial legislation. During Trump’s first term, he relied heavily on executive orders to implement immigration policy. Many of those moves were challenged in the courts, something Miller acknowledged would likely happen again in a second Trump term.
In his comments last year, Miller was up-front about his belief that Trump would not hesitate to implement harsh immigration measures in a second term.
“Any activists who doubt President Trump’s resolve in the slightest are making a drastic error: Trump will unleash the vast arsenal of federal powers to implement the most spectacular migration crackdown,” Miller said at the time.
This story has been updated with additional background information.
CNN’s Michelle Shen contributed to this report.
