Immigration | Stephen Miller’s crisis

(New York) In a message published Sunday on X, California Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom accused Donald Trump of having “made a crisis” by deploying members of the National Guard in Los Angeles without his consent.

But this controversial deployment would probably not have taken place if Stephen Miller, architect of the Policy of the Republican President in matters of immigration, had not himself stuck a crisis on May 21.

That day, the presidential advisor had summoned to Washington 50 Immigration Police (ICE) responsible for orchestrating, as directors of local office or special agents, the massive expulsions of migrants promised by Donald Trump.

Internal security secretary Kristi Noem was also present during this meeting qualified as “tense” by the media. During the meeting, Stephen Miller set at 3000 the daily number of arrests that the ICE officials had to carry out. This new target, we must specify, is three times higher than the number of daily arrests claimed by the ICE at the start of the second presidential mandate of Donald Trump.

“Miller’s directives and his tone led participants to leave the meeting with the feeling that their jobs could be threatened if the new objectives were not achieved,” the Axios news site wrote on May 28, citing two anonymous sources.

“A third person said Miller was trying to motivate people with a severe tone. This is not the first time that Miller has asked high officials of the Department of Internal Security to increase the number of arrests and evictions. »»

“Not a good job”

Two days later, the Washington ExamineConservative media, added details to say the least, concerning the attitude of Stephen Miller during the May 21 meeting (details confirmed largely by the Wall Street Journal Monday).

“Miller has entered the room and has evisced everyone:” You are not doing a good job. You are horrible leaders. ” He attacked everyone. He had nothing positive to say about anyone, he knew the morale of the troops, “told theExamine An ICE official who collected testimonies from people present at the meeting.

“Stephen Miller wants everyone to be arrested. “Why are you not at Home Depot? Why are you not at 7-Eleven?” “Asked the presidential advisor, naming businesses outside which migrants in an irregular situation stand in the morning in the hope of being recruited as day laborers.

According to theExaminean ICE official replied by reminding him that the Department of Internal Security and the White House had repeatedly repeated that the immigration police should target criminal migrants, or the “worst of the worst” in priority, not the general population of undocumented migrants.

Kristi Noem had to intervene to calm the game, according to the story of theExamine.

A spokesperson for the ICE said to the right media: “Stephen Miller did not say several of the things you say. »»

But the arrests and detentions of migrants that took place last week in Los Angeles suggest that the message of Stephen Miller was heard by the officials of the local office of the ICE. They did not target the “worst of the worst” last Friday. They made a major descent into a retail and distribution warehouse in the Fashion District, in the city center. American citizens, including the president of a union (released since), were also arrested and detained.

Chaos and “insurgents”

A few hours before this raid, the ICE agents had arrested migrants in an irregular situation who had presented themselves to programmed checks or who were to appear before courts of the County of Los Angeles.

These arrests sowed panic and anger within the Los Angeles Latin immigrant community and contributed to violent clashes that broke out the next day in Paramount, a locality of the County of Los Angeles where dozens of border patrol and other federal agencies had converged.

Mobilized by rumors of a descent to Home Depot or in a food packaging factory, demonstrators launched stones and other projectiles towards federal agents, which were within a closed industrial park. The agents responded by pulling tear gas from them.

It was the beginning of a chaotic day during which demonstrators chanted slogans against the ICE, burnt down to cars and brandished the flags of Mexico or other countries of Latin America.

It didn’t take more for Stephen Miller to describe Los Angeles as a “occupied territory” by a horde of “insurgents”, even if most of the districts of this big city have remained peaceful.

Donald Trump also used the word “insurgent” to talk about the demonstrators or rioters of Los Angeles. His criticism fear that the use of this word will be the prelude to his invocation of theInsurrection Act From 1807, which authorized the president to deploy the US military in the United States territory to put an end to civil disorders, insurrection and rebellion.

This law goes much further than the legal provision invoked by Donald Trump on Saturday to justify his decision to deploy 4,000 members of the National Guard and 700 navies in Los Angeles.

In a sense, this is the crisis, manufactured or not, which Stephen Miller dreamed of.

“We have said for years that it is a fight to save civilization. Anyone with eyes can see him now, “wrote the president’s adviser on X on Sunday.

Question: “Will expulsion measures have or have an impact on the growth of the American economy?” “Asks Pierre Dupuis.

Answer: It obviously depends on the number of migrants expelled. For the moment, the administration is far from the objective it had set for itself, that is to say “millions and millions”, to use the words of Donald Trump. That said, the Peterson Institute for the International Economy estimates that the expulsion of 8.3 million undocumented immigrants could lead to a 7.4 % drop in GDP by 2028.