ICE funding through the term limits Democrats’ options on immigration
Kurt Bardella, an adviser to Democrats in Texas, and David Cohen, a political science professor at the University of Akron in Ohio who studies the American presidency and White House staffing, said President Donald Trump’s promotion of Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff points to more executive orders, unilateral action and less cooperation with Congress through the final two years of Trump’s term. Bardella, who described Miller in qualified terms — “In a lot of ways Stephen Miller has been the id to Trump’s authoritarian impulses and machinations” — called the appointment “a signal that they intend to double down on that authoritarianism.” “You’re going to see a lot of executive orders, unilateral action and stress testing of the checks and balances system continue for the final two years of his presidency,” Bardella said. Cohen said Trump’s decision to elevate Miller “means that he’s spoiling for a fight with Democrats and they’re going to just rely on executive action to try and push their agenda through,” and described “a White House that doesn’t seek out cooperation with Congress.”
Trump named Miller chief of staff on Friday, replacing Susie Wiles. Miller, 41, had been serving as what The Guardian’s analysis called “a hugely powerful deputy chief of staff at the White House,” and the appointment makes him one of the most powerful unelected officials in Washington. The move came days after Republicans lost both chambers of Congress in Tuesday’s midterm elections, a result the analysis described as the biggest in a midterm election since Watergate. The analysis noted that the elections were free and fair and that Trump did not dispute the result, calling that “itself a victory for democracy.”
The Guardian’s analysis, by David Smith in Washington, opened by saying Trump “just gave the middle finger to millions of American voters” and called the promotion “a declaration of war.” It argued that a president who suffered a defeat of that scale might have felt at least a sliver of humility, or even an obligation to work with the new opposition in Congress, but that Trump, not for the first time in his political career, veered in the opposite direction. The analysis called Miller the architect of Trump’s “far-right, nativist” immigration agenda and said he was therefore, arguably, the architect of the blue wave that engulfed Republicans in Tuesday’s midterm elections, as voters — including many Latinos — expressed their disgust. Rather than firing Miller after that result, Trump promoted him.
Miller is a longtime proponent of the presidential authority Trump has spent the past two years expanding at the expense of Congress. In 2017 he declared: “The powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.” The analysis said Republicans’ “catastrophic defeat” is likely to leave Trump more reliant on unilateral executive action than ever to advance his domestic agenda.
Trump has signed 292 executive orders in less than two years, more than in his entire first term and a record pace for a modern presidency. The analysis described the administration’s second term as a concerted effort to dismantle the checks and balances that have traditionally constrained the occupant of the White House, and catalogued what that has looked like: bypassing Congress on military action and tariffs, withholding congressionally approved spending, deploying the National Guard against the will of state authorities, politicizing the Justice Department, punishing critics and challenging judicial independence. Congress, dominated by Republicans reluctant to confront him, offered little resistance, the analysis said.
Miller is best known for driving the administration’s immigration enforcement program in Trump’s second term. He set a target of 3,000 arrests per day — far above levels under previous administrations — and pushed Immigration and Customs Enforcement to target anybody in the country illegally, not just those with criminal records. There are limits on what Democrats can do to stop that immigration drive, The Guardian’s analysis said, because the One Big Beautiful Bill Act included major increases for Immigration and Customs Enforcement that will keep the agency funded for the rest of Trump’s term.
Even so, Democrats will now chair House committees with the ability to launch investigations, issue subpoenas and hold high-profile hearings. They will seek to rein in the president and block his legislative agenda, the analysis said, bringing them into direct conflict with Miller. Along with ICE, the analysis said, Democrats might scrutinize the Jeffrey Epstein files and the Department of Government Efficiency, and they have also vowed to examine how Trump and his family have become wealthier since he returned to office.
The concentration of presidential authority at issue has a longer history than the current administration. Arthur Schlesinger Jr.’s 1973 book, The Imperial Presidency, warned that an accumulation of presidential power threatened the constitutional separation of powers. In 1989 the American Enterprise Institute think tank published The Fettered Presidency, a counterpoint arguing that legal and congressional constraints had unduly weakened the executive. The analysis said the book helped inspire a modern conservative drive to expand presidential authority, which accelerated under George W. Bush and was subsequently exploited by Barack Obama as congressional gridlock made legislating increasingly difficult.
Cohen added that “It’s their way or the highway, essentially,” and said it is possible Stephen Miller is relishing the promotion “because he’s a believer in the unitary presidency and executive presidential action and he views this as a way where he can expand the powers of the presidency.” The analysis said the appointment of Miller as Trump’s consigliere suggests the White House is moving to a “war footing,” with Miller likely to marshal a team of lawyers and attack Democrats by accusing them of weaponizing the “deep state” against the president. As a frequent guest on the conservative Fox News network, he will also wage war in the court of public opinion, the analysis said.
Miller has championed the Iran war and has been a prominent voice on many of the president’s other priorities, including countering diversity initiatives and targeting transgender rights. He is reportedly one of a small group of White House staffers who approve all executive orders. Democrats and civil rights groups have condemned him as a white nationalist, the analysis noted.
Bill Galston, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution think tank in Washington, said: “It’s a step that I find hard to fathom except as the president giving the middle finger to the American public.” He added: “In the same way that he ransacked the state of Texas for the very worst senatorial nominee imaginable, now he’s done the same thing with the chief of staff position. This is simply outrageous.”
The Guardian’s analysis argued that the combination of Trump and Miller “takes the concept of an American Caesar to a new extreme” and flies in the face of the verdict delivered by the electorate on Tuesday.