Six months ago, it seemed as though President Donald Trump’s anti-immigration agenda was teetering on the verge of collapse. The high-profile crackdowns that culminated in a federal invasion of Minneapolis and the death of two Americans had ended in the retreat of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Much of the Department of Homeland Security was temporarily shut down as lawmakers clashed over funding for ICE and Border Patrol. Kristi Noem would soon be forced out as secretary of homeland security, while Trump’s approval numbers on immigration took a nosedive.
Although the White House has often used violent offenders as an excuse for a broader crackdown, Miller’s crusade has been far broader in its targets.
Through it all, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller seethed and waited. It seems that his patience is unfortunately paying off. In the final five days of June, ICE arrested more than 10,000 people, and in July it almost matched that pace. As The Associated Press reported Tuesday, ICE arrested nearly 50,000 people last month, surpassing the previous monthly record since Trump’s return to office in January 2025.
There’s no single factor that’s caused this rise in arrests. The AP noted the use of so-called Kavanaugh stops to detain immigrants during traffic stops and an increase in arrests made in concert with state and local law enforcement. ICE officers also had a new pool of targets to consider as more than 300,000 Haitian recipients of Temporary Protected Status had those protections stripped away.
The last is the most worrying. Although the White House has often used violent offenders as an excuse for a broader crackdown, Miller’s crusade has been far broader in its targets. Since January 2025, he’s pushed to revoke than 1 million U.S. residents of TPS and other legal protections that allowed them to live and work in the country. Dara Lind, an immigration reporter and a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, has dubbed this effort “the Great Delegalization.” As a result, these immigrants are now being forced out of the lives they have built over years of following the rules and contributing to making their communities and the country better.
But the pace Miller has set demands constant infusions of new targets. The Associated Press also reported Monday that the State Department would soon begin targeting asylum seekers who first entered the country between 2016 and 2026 on tourist or business visas. As the AP noted, at present “applicants for B1 and B2 visas are asked to affirm that they will not apply for asylum in the United States and prove that they intend to return to their home countries.” Those granted such a visa may still apply for protection up to a year after entry under normal circumstances — or later if, for example, changing conditions in their home country mean that returning would no longer be safe.
It’s unclear how many people this might affect, but The New York Times and others have cited an estimate of up to 200,000 who are visa holders and asylum applicants. “Under President Trump and Secretary [Marco] Rubio’s leadership, we are making clear that a visa is a privilege — not a right,” Tommy Pigott, a State Department spokesperson, said in a statement to the Times. It marks yet another blow to the asylum system, already weakened over the past decade. (As for the system for admitting refugees, that has been hollowed out to the point that it is now a grotesque mockery.)
There are even more restrictions coming. DHS announced Monday that it is spinning up a proposed rule that would charge a $100,000 fee for new H1-B visas, which would be used to bolster ICE’s already overflowing coffers. H1-B visas are doled out to skilled foreign workers and are highly competitive. A similar fee that Trump instituted via proclamation was rejected last year after a federal judge determined that it was an unconstitutional tax. Undeterred, the White House is again trying to tack on a large cost to the application — a major problem for businesses and immigrants alike.
The pace Miller has set demands constant infusions of new targets.
Not even children are safe from the administration’s pressure to increase deportations. Politico reported on Aug. 14 that a series of administrative rulings “seem poised to erode a long-held principle of the immigration system — that children are uniquely vulnerable and as such are entitled special rights and procedural safeguards.” The kids these new rulings affect will now find it harder to gain residency or asylum, increasing the odds of their deportation in immigration courts that are increasingly Trump-appointed.
While a fleet of DHS deportation planes may be sitting idle, Miller has not been. Most of the changes to the administration’s approach have come without the attention-grabbing and fearmongering approach of this time last year. The net effect is that, though the president’s poll numbers on immigration and border security haven’t recovered since the start of the year, protests over data centers have overtaken protests at ICE detention facilities in headlines. More than most of his compatriots within the Trump administration, Miller can learn from mistakes while still pursing the exact same goals. Accordingly, he now finds himself seeing his dream of an America purged of immigrants closer than ever to coming to fruition.
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