White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, center, is seen during a congressional picnic on the South Lawn of the White House, June 21, 2019. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(JTA) — Twenty-five Jewish Democratic House members urged President Donald Trump to dismiss his senior policy adviser Stephen Miller.
In a letter sent to the president on Friday, the Congress members focused on Miller’s hardline views on immigration and referenced recently leaked emails in which he promoted white nationalist materials to the right-wing Breitbart News website.
“With America experiencing historic levels of anti-Semitism, xenophobia, racism, and white supremacy, there should be no place in our government and on any President’s staff for people propagating such views,” the letter says.
In the emails, published by the Southern Poverty Law Center, Miller sent a Breitbart reporter links to VDare, a news website popular with white nationalists, and recommended that she read “The Camp of the Saints,” a racist French novel by Jean Raspail from the 1970s that has become an ideological foundation document for white nationalists. He also railed against the removal of Confederate monuments and flags after a white nationalist, Dylann Roof, opened fire at a South Carolina church and killed nine worshippers.
Miller has helped craft the president’s controversial immigration policies, including the ban on citizens of certain Muslim majority countries and the family separation policy on the southern border. Miller is Jewish and his ancestors were immigrants to the United States.
The signatories also took issue with a response by White House spokesman Hogan Gidley to the leaked emails in which Gidley implied that criticism of Miller was anti-Semitic.
“Weaponizing anti-Semitism is incredibly dangerous – by muddying the waters, we are no longer able to see and fight against the real anti-Semites in our midst,” the letter reads.
Reps. Brad Schneider of Illinois and Debbie Wasserman-Schultz of Florida organized the letter.
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