White Nationalists Praise Stephen Miller For Popularizing ‘Chain Migration’

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By Sam Kestenbaum February 1, 2018

White nationalist Richard Spencer praised President Trump’s senior advisor Stephen Miller for influencing the president on the issue of immigration and pushing political discourse further to the right.

Speaking on his “Alt-Right” podcast on January 24, Spencer said that Miller “is singularly responsible for the fact that… we’re even talking about chain migration.”

“Chain migration” is a contentious term that immigration advocates see as a pejorative phrase that demeans recent arrivals. Miller and others argue it’s a useful shorthand for the system of family sponsorship of immigrants.

This isn’t the first time white nationalists like Spencer have claimed Miller, who is Jewish, as an ally. Spencer has even said he mentored Miller. The two attended Duke University together in the mid-2000s.

In their time together at Duke, Miller helped Spencer organize an immigration debate on campus featuring white nationalist Peter Brimelow, founder of VDARE.com, a site that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls “a hub for white nationalists and antisemites who decry non-white immigration to the United States.”

Miller gained attention during Trump’s campaign for warming up his rally crowds, often by promising that the candidate would make good on his promise to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Email Sam Kestenbaum at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum

Sam Kestenbaum is a contributing editor and former staff writer for the Forward. Before this, he worked for The New York Times and newsrooms in Sana, Ramallah and Beijing. Contact him at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter at @skestenbaum and on Instagram at @skestenbaum.

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