How Stephen Miller Knee-Capped the Trump-Schumer-Pelosi DACA Deal

Swim19 · 10-10-2017, 08:16 AM

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Miller, a staunch immigration hawk, was conspicuously left out of the bipartisan dinner meeting where that DACA framework had been formed. By the morning after the dinner, Miller, sources say, was already in discussions with Capitol Hill offices about how to ensure conservative policy gains ended up in the final deal his boss might cut.

A hard-lined anti-immigration advocate, Miller strategized with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) about a more specific, more conservative, set of extractions the White House would demand in the deal. Cotton was the natural choice—he is one of the Senate’s most conservative members on the immigration issue, and the co-author of legislation, dubbed the RAISE Act, to significantly limit the number of legal immigrants to the U.S.

“They’ve been in close and constant contact on DACA and RAISE,” a source familiar with their discussions told The Daily Beast. Policies in line with Cotton’s legislation formed a key portion of the legislative “principles” released by the White House on Sunday.Discussions between Cotton and Miller continued after last month’s meeting, the source said. According to Caroline Rabbit, Cotton’s spokeswoman, the senator “was and is in contact with numerous people in the administration about immigration policy.” She described the discussions as broader than the Miller backchannel. “I think it’s more accurate to characterize it as he extensively consulted with the [White House] on immigration as a whole over the last few several months,” she said.

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Miller worries about being portrayed as the true master of Trump’s immigration policy—a “President Miller” capable of vetoing any “deal” the actual president might strike with Democratic leaders—and has operated more carefully and less ostentatiously than someone like Bannon.“He actively fears becoming that… [and] goes to great lengths to avoid the ‘Bannon overlord’ image that killed Bannon” in the Trump White House, one of Miller’s West Wing colleagues told The Daily Beast. “The last thing he wants is for the president to see him as some showboat.”

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-st...losi-daca-deal