Throughout Donald Trump’s presidency, his senior adviser Stephen Miller has attempted to use laws designed to protect public health to crack down on immigration—all to no avail, thanks in part to Cabinet secretaries and attorneys arguing that his plans didn’t pass legal muster. But the coronavirus crisis could give Miller an opening. According to the New York Times, Trump’s moves in recent months to close borders and restrict immigration amid the pandemic were not new, but recycled drafts of executive orders and policy proposals by Miller and the president, suggesting that measures undertaken under the auspices of protecting the public from the COVID crisis could be used to further the administration’s longstanding dream of cutting back legal immigration overall.
“The most important thing is to turn off the faucet of new immigrant labor,” Miller told conservative allies in a phone call reported by the Washington Post last month, describing recent restrictions and border closures as the first step in a broader plan to limit immigration.
According to the Times on Sunday, Miller has promoted a “wish list” of dozens of proposals to restrict immigration since the dawn of the Trump administration—among them, a plan for Trump to invoke his public health powers to suspend “entries and imports from designated places to prevent the spread of communicable diseases.” To this point, all that’s been missing from the plan has been the disease.
Enter coronavirus, which has killed nearly 250,000 people worldwide and more than 68,000 in the United States. While the administration comes under fire for grossly mismanaging the crisis, Miller and other anti-immigration crusaders in the Trump administration have appeared to seize on an opportunity. “All around the country, Americans of every political stripe will rally behind an initiative to make sure they, their children, their parents, their husbands, wives, sons, uncles, nephews, cousins can be the first to get a job when it opens up, to get her old job back when they rehire, or to keep their job if they already have one,” Miller said in the April call, according to the Post—framing Trump’s April 22 executive order restricting immigration largely in economic, not public safety terms.
That order, which was upheld by a federal judge last week, suspended the issuance of green cards for 60 days. While the measure is so far temporary, Miller suggested on the phone call that the goal was to extend it beyond that point. “It is vital, it is necessary, it is patriotic and it deserves the full-throated support of everybody on this call,” he said.
So far, Trump’s actions on immigration have not included invoking the public health powers Miller has previously advocated. But given Trump’s propensity to portray immigrants as carriers of disease, some of whom hail from what he has called “shithole countries,” it’s possible Miller could get to check another item off his wish list. On Monday, Trump tied coronavirus to immigration in tweet. Already, he’s begun using COVID as a pretext for weaponizing the Office of Refugee Resettlement at the Health and Human Services department as part of his border crackdown. With coronavirus forcing travel restrictions around the world, Miller could again use the pandemic as an excuse to do what he had wanted to do all along.
On Monday, Trump tried linking his administration’s immigration policy to the pandemic. “Mexico is sadly experiencing very big CoronaVirus problems, and now California, get this, doesn’t want people coming over the Southern Border. A Classic!” he tweeted. “They are sooo lucky that I am their President. Border is very tight and the Wall is rapidly being built!”
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