Top White House aide Stephen Miller's claims of exploding crime across the country came as a surprise to residents of Minneapolis after he held up that city as a cautionary tale, according to Steve Benen with MSNBC.
Miller told Fox News this week, "We have communities all across this nation that, 20 years ago, before the era of open borders, were completely peaceful, completely stable, thriving middle classes."
He added, "Look at a place like Minneapolis. Post-mass migration, they are unsafe, they are violent, you cannot use the public parks."
Benen wrote that Miller's comments "did not go unnoticed, especially among people in Minneapolis who enjoy visiting local parks...What’s more, plenty of observers were quick to note that crime rates across Minnesota have improved considerably in recent years, and Minneapolis, in particular, has seen a significant decrease in violent crime in the first half of 2025."
Perhaps the most "memorable reaction," according to Benen, came from Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty who said in a statement, “If we wanted a white supremacist’s opinion, we’d ask. But we don’t. So we won’t.”
Miller and Transportation secretary Sean Duffy have both pushed the narrative this week that "Biden's open border policies" created a cesspool of crime that only President Donald Trump's efforts are starting to drain.
"There’s no great mystery here: The Trump administration wants people to be afraid, because the more Americans are scared, the more they’re likely to endorse a mass-deportation campaign," Benen wrote. "For the White House, in other words, the politics of fear is overriding every other consideration, including the temptation to brag about — and perhaps even try to take credit for — a heartening national trend."
Benen added that "a better example of people steering clear of public parks" would be MacArthur Park in Los Angeles "where local residents were recently forced to flee when federal officers and National Guard troops arrived for reasons that are still unclear."