As Los Angeles was convulsed by confrontation between pro-migrant protesters and military units dispatched by President Donald Trump, no figure apart from the president loomed larger than Stephen Miller. The deputy chief of staff, whose influence far outstrips his modest title, has been the long-term architect of Trump's hardline immigration policy.
Miller, 39, pressed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to intensify arrests, ordering them to skip compiling lists of suspected illegal migrants and instead target Home Depot and 7-Eleven stores for mass arrests. He aims for a minimum of 3,000 arrests a day, a figure exceeding previous estimates and raising the risk of mistakes.
The son of affluent Jewish parents, Miller's evolution into a race-baiting provocateur began in Santa Monica, where he gained notoriety at high school for expressing disdain for Hispanic students. In his teenage years, he wrote that 'Osama bin Laden would feel very welcome' at his school and associated with far-right groups at Duke University, including one defined as an 'anti-Muslim hate group' by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
As demonstrators took to the streets in Los Angeles, Miller accused them of an 'insurrection', prompting speculation that he took satisfaction in confronting the city of his birth, emblematic of the progressive trends he and Trump's base despise.
