White House aide Stephen Miller faced accusations of “shameless racism” after claiming Somali immigrants used stolen money to buy luxury cars and a “nice house.”
Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff, made the remarks Tuesday in the Oval Office as President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance launched a $25 million fraud-tip program. The architect of President Donald Trump's immigration policy erupted with a litany of unproven claims while lashing out at the predominantly Black community,
“You spent half your working life paying for fraudsters and scammers, many of whom are refugees, illegal aliens and foreigners who came to this country to loot and plunder us!” Miller shouted, seeming to address middle-class taxpayers, who were presumably white.
Miller offered no evidence for that claim. He then pointed to Nick Shirley, a debunked conservative YouTuber whose videos alleged fraud at Minnesota daycares. Trump handed Shirley a $10,000 check earlier at the same event.
“People like Nick exposed: they came here from Somalia, been living here for a year or two,” Miller argued.
“I’m taking care of 200 kids. Send me a check for $30 million,” Miller continued, voicing someone who opens “a fake daycare” and tells state officials. “They buy Mercedes. They buy BMWs. They buy a mansion. They buy a nice house."
“All their kids fly first class all over the world,” he added. “They are living the high life.”
Miller then accused Democrats of planning to “bring in another 10, 20, 30 million more people, dilute you and rob you and take everything you have.”
On Bluesky, journalist Aaron Rupar shared a clip of the remarks and wrote, “This is a lie!”
Irish political scientist John O’Brennan wrote on X, “The shameless racism now polluting the Oval Office.”
Atlantic staff writer Adam Serwer wrote on Bluesky, “I’m not sure how much more blatant it can get that these guys are looting the federal government and then pointing over there and saying ‘look what THOSE BLACK PEOPLE ARE GETTING AWAY WITH!!!’”
Princeton University historian Kevin Kruse wrote on Bluesky, “They’re weirdly pressing two kinds of white supremacist lies at once -- some non-white immigrants are poverty-wracked criminals who are eating our dogs and cats, but other non-white immigrants are rich elites who are buying up mansions and flying first class.”
The luxury purchases Miller described trace to a pandemic food-aid fraud case whose defendants are mostly U.S. citizens, not to recent arrivals running daycares.
Prosecutors charged 70 people in that case, which centered on the nonprofit Feeding Our Future, and said defendants used most of the money meant to feed children during the pandemic to buy homes, properties and luxury vehicles, NBC News reported.
Across Minnesota’s fraud cases, at least 85 of those charged are of Somali descent, but the vast majority of them are U.S. citizens.
One daycare owner featured in Shirley’s video was the exception. Fahima Mahamud pleaded guilty in July to wire fraud and conspiracy to defraud the United States.
Miller and his wife bought their newly built home in Arlington, Virginia, in 2023 for just under $2.875 million, then listed it for $3.75 million in October 2025, about a month after protesters wrote chalk messages near it.
The family has since moved into Washington-area military housing, where civilian officials in most cases pay fair-market rent under a formula set by the military, The Atlantic reported.
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