Miller began working with far-right hate groups while studying at Duke University; he organized events such as a campus-wide “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” with the David Horowitz Freedom Center, an anti-Muslim hate group. He also served as the first national coordinator of the Center’s “Terrorism Awareness Project”, which existed to “make our fellow students aware of the Islamic jihad and the terrorist threat, and to mobilize support for the defence of America and the civilization of the West.” As a member of Duke’s Conservative Union, Miller helped organize an event which brought white nationalist Peter Brimelow to campus in 2007. Brimelow is the founder of the white nationalist group VDARE, which calls itself a “journalistic nonprofit” but regularly publishes the work of eugenicists, nativists and other extremists, including the Great Replacement theory.
Miller’s first position within federal policymaking circles began when he served as a press secretary for a former Minnesota Congresswoman in 2008, who peddled anti-Muslim conspiracy theories, including that the Muslim Brotherhood had infiltrated the US government in pursuit of “America’s demise.”
In 2009, Miller started working for then-Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama eventually becoming his chief of communications. While serving in the US Senate, Sessions was one of the anti-immigrant movement’s strongest allies and regularly cited reports produced by anti-immigrant hate groups like the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS). Miller, Republican Senator Jeff Sessions, Steve Bannon — of the conservative network Breitbart News — all met in 2013 and decided that opposing immigration should be a priority for conservative politicians. Breitbart News was used by Miller in 2013 to churn out anti-immigrant and white nationalist propaganda to defeat a bill that would have created a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.
In less than a decade, Miller was working as a speechwriter and speaker for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. During this time, Bannon again influenced Breitbart’s editorial output, this time an effort to buoy Trump’s run. When Trump won his election, Miller was promoted to the new president’s top aide. From 2016–2020, Miller helped implement policies that demonized immigrants, regardless of their immigration status, in an effort to stop all forms of immigration to the United States. Miller has been known to “actually enjoy” seeing photos of families being separated at the border as a consequence of a “zero-tolerance” immigration policy which led to thousands of children being torn from their families at the border. In 2023, former chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security Miles Taylor wrote about how Miller expressed desires to drone-bomb boats full of migrants.
