Stephen Miller’s Uncle Calls Him a Hypocrite in an Online Essay

WASHINGTON — Stephen Miller, one of the key architects of President Donald Trump’s hard-line immigration agenda, is the descendant of Jewish immigrants who arrived to a welcoming United States at the turn of the 20th century.

But in an essay posted online Monday, Dr. David S. Glosser, Miller’s uncle, argues that the family would have been turned away if the immigration policies currently backed by Trump and Miller were in place at the time.

“I have watched with dismay and increasing horror as my nephew, an educated man who is well aware of his heritage, has become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundation of our family’s life in this country,” Glosser wrote in the article, published Monday by Politico.

The article was a notable rebuke by a family member to Miller, who is one of the most fervent public defenders of Trump’s immigration policies — the ban on travelers to the United States from several Muslim countries, the separation of families crossing the border illegally and the drastic reduction in the number of refugees admitted to the United States.

In the article, Glosser related in detail the story of Wolf-Leib Glosser, who arrived on Ellis Island in 1903 from the village of Antopol in Eastern Europe, fleeing persecution and forced conscription. Wolf-Leib Glosser was Miller’s great-grandfather on his mother’s side, writes Glosser.

Had Trump’s immigration policies been in effect at the time, Miller’s uncle writes in the article, “I shudder at the thought of what would have become of the Glossers.”

Supporters of Trump’s immigration agenda insist that it makes no sense to compare the immigration system today with the one that existed at the turn of the 20th century. They argue that the level of education among immigrants is much lower now and that the type of workers seeking to come into the United States have less to offer the current U.S. economy.

Miller — who attended Santa Monica High School in Santa Monica, California, one of the country’s most liberal communities — has pushed for an end to the family-based immigration laws that went into effect in the mid-1960s, arguing that the United States should restrict entry to those who can contribute the most to the U.S. economy.

Those views have made Miller a valuable and powerful part of Trump’s White House as the administration has repeatedly pushed to overhaul the country’s immigration laws. But it has also made Miller the target of critics — including his relatives — who say he espouses meanspirited and even racist policies.

In the article, Glosser writes that he fears Miller has forgotten his heritage and the suffering that his ancestors faced.

“Acting for so long in the theater of right-wing politics,” he writes, “Stephen and Trump may have become numb to the resultant human tragedy and blind to the hypocrisy of their policy decisions.”