Stephen Miller, a key White House adviser to President Donald Trump, hails from a Russian Jewish family — and his cousin made clear she believes Miller is now a part of the very cycle of hate that his family had to endure for centuries, The New Republic reported on Monday.
Miller, a key figure in Trump's immigration policy, has pushed an extreme nativist vision for the United States, even going so far as to write anti-immigrant speeches that echo Nazi Germany rhetoric.
"Stephen Miller’s ancestors first arrived in the United States in 1903," wrote Greg Sargent. "That’s when a man named Wolf Laib Glosser disembarked at Ellis Island after leaving behind his hometown in Antopol, a small town in the part of the czarist Russian empire that is now Belarus. Wolf Laib, who was fleeing a life marked by anti-Jewish pogroms and forced conscription, quickly set about trying to raise more money to bring over relatives."
Laib made a living at first by selling fruit on New York City street corners, and after getting enough money to bring his family over, he built a life for them.
Alisa Kasmer, a cousin of Miller's, told the outlet that Miller is now pushing the same hatred that would have kept their own family out of America.
“We’re Jewish—we grew up knowing how hated we were just for existing,” she said. “Now he’s trying to take away the exact thing that his own family benefited from: that ability to create a life for themselves, to prosper, to build community, to have successful businesses — to live a rewarding life.”
Sargent added that this hatred, "will be Miller’s ugly legacy."
Ironically, Sargent noted, many analysts spoke as Miller did in the late 20th century of immigrants like his family, with historian Gary Gerstle saying nativists of the time believed "groups outside the culture" were “unassimilable, with Jewish ranks full of Bolsheviks and Italian ranks full of anarchists.” And Miller has repeatedly praised the Immigration Act of 1924, an extreme xenophobic law which essentially shut down emigration from all but a few countries, and which would have made his family's story impossible.
A book about Miller's ancestors that has been unreleased until now, "A Precious Legacy," goes so far as to say that the 1924 law, had it applied to Miller's family, could have resulted in their mass murder by Hitler.
"Thanks to the 1924 act, the book notes, 'the doors to free and open immigration here swung shut.' Fortunately, all of Wolf Laib’s immediate family made it to the United States by 1920, the book says, but many left behind did not fare well," wrote Sargent. "'Those Jews who remained in Antopol were not so lucky,' ruefully recounts the book, which was first discussed in Hatemongerby journalist Jean Guerrero. It adds that most of those who remained in Wolf Laib’s town 'were murdered by the Nazis.'"