Stephen Miller takes it on the chin
In August 2018, retired neuroscientist David Glosser wrote an alarming article for Politico entitled, “Stephen Miller Is an Immigration Hypocrite. I Know Because I’m His Uncle.” Glosser expressed his “dismay and increasing horror” watching his nephew “become the architect of immigration policies that repudiate the very foundation of our family’s life in this country.” Glosser explained how if Miller’s ideas had been the law a century ago, “our family would have been wiped out.”
A year and a half later, Miller is still in Donald Trump’s good graces, advising him on growing their anti-immigrant agenda through cruel family separation, racist travel bans, and more. Despite all the hate, Miller appears to have fallen in love. On Sunday, Miller married Katie Waldman, who is currently Mike Pence’s press secretary and also serves Trump as a special assistant. The wedding took place at a super-secretive reception at Trump International Hotel in Washington DC with both Trump and Pence in attendance.
Miller seems to have found his soulmate in a match made in hell. In January 2019, as Homeland Security Deputy Press Secretary under Kirstjen Nielsen, Waldman insisted to ABC News that the Trump administration “never had a blanket policy of separating families in custody.” Around the same time, she also told CNN that border agents needed to use tear gas and pepper spray against a “violent mob of migrants” from Mexico.
Not surprisingly, Glosser was not invited to his nephew’s wedding. He nevertheless came up with the perfect wedding gift. On Monday, Glosser announced on Facebook that he will be making a contribution to the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (HIAS), a worldwide organization that has assisted refugees since its founding in 1881. Glosser wrote that HIAS “helped to rescue my family from Czarist oppression in the Russian Empire in 1906” and would have otherwise “been murdered by the racial madness of Nazism.” He also cited 74 relatives who “were shut out of America by the race/religion based immigration exclusion act of 1925 enacted by the ‘America First’ populists of the day.”
In just a couple of days, Glosser has already raised nearly $4,000 for HIAS, following his own donation. After the newlyweds are finished opening their cards, they should take a moment to read at least the last sentence of their uncle’s post: “Protect the refugee and welcome the stranger…they built America.” These brave, hardworking, and hopeful people did build America, but in a dark twist of fate, they also enabled Miller to be where he is today.
Ron Leshnower is a lawyer and the author of several books, including President Trump’s Month