• Faith: Judaism
• Career: Politician
• Birthday:  August 23, 1985

Stephen N. Miller grew up in Santa Monica, California. Of his two siblings, he was the middle child, born to Miriam and Michael Miller. The Millers were deeply involved in their faith community. Michael was often seen as a community leader, serving as a board member of several Jewish organizations. Many of the synagogues the family attended were liberal, such as The Santa Monica Synagogue (also known as Sha'arei Am). In February 2020, Miller married Katie Waldman. Waldman, like Miller, is also Jewish. The couple is raising three children together.

During his university years at Duke, Miller was a vocal advocate for conservatism. As a political science major at Duke University, Miller was deeply involved in politics. After the university hosted a 2004 conference in support of Palestine, Miller founded a Students for Academic Freedom chapter on campus. In his third year of undergraduate studies, he joined the Duke Conservative Union. After graduating in 2007, Miller began working for Michelle Bachmann, a Minnesota representative. Leading up to Donald Trump's first presidential term, Miller assisted the campaign with its immigration policies. When Trump entered office, Miller became one of the president's senior advisors.

One of Miller's key issues as a policy advisor was the immigration crackdown. In January 2017, Miller co-wrote Trump's Muslim ban executive order, barring immigrants from several Muslim-majority countries. Miller also helped write several of the president's speeches. Later that year, Miller and other advisors succeeded in convincing Trump to roll back the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). DACA, implemented in 2012, delays deportations for undocumented immigrants who arrived in the US under the age of 16. At the time of writing, DACA has not been completely undone due to political concessions—although the program is not accepting new applications, only renewals. In June 2019, Trump moved forward with another of Miller's recommendations—placing a five percent tariff on Mexican imports in an attempt to quell immigration from America's southern neighbor.

Miller continued to wield influence in Trump's second term, being named the deputy chief of staff and advisor for homeland security. So far, Miller has been described as the architect of Trump's border policies. Miller has become more vocal in espousing that immigration is a danger to Western civilization. The advisor and chief of staff advocated for the president's federalization of the Washington, DC National Guard in August 2025. Miller has also been a public-facing member of Trump's team, speaking to the media about the March 2025 deportation of Salvadoran man Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the September 2025 assassination of Charlie Kirk, and the January 2026 apprehension of Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro.

Miller's hardline stance on immigration has often drawn controversy in an already polarized (and unfortunately deadly) immigration debate. Due to his association with far-right outlets like the website VDARE and the magazine American Renaissance, along with his identitarian critiques of immigration as eroding Western society and values, many have described Miller as draconian and nativist.

Like many American families, the Millers have an important story of how they arrived in America. In particular, his mother's family, the Glossers. For generations, the Glossers lived in the Pale of Settlement (a territory of the Russian Empire that included Belarus), an area where Jews had been segregated from the interior of Russia. The family had lived in Antipol for generations. But as anti-Semitism rose towards the dawn of the 1900s—namely, the violence that spread from Russia's 1903 Kishinev pogrom —Miller's great-great-grandfather, Wolf-Leib Glosser, decided to immigrate with his family to America in 1903. The family was joined by countless other Jewish families who emigrated from the Pale of Settlement from 1880 to 1920.

Is Stephen Miller Religious?

As mentioned, Miller's parents were deeply involved in the California Jewish community. Miller himself had a religious upbringing. The young Miller attended Beth Shir Shalom, a Hebrew school. Although Miller did not complete his bar mitzvah at Beth Shir Shalom, he left a lasting

impression on his classmates. One classmate recalled a story where Miller put a swift end to a debate over who should eat the last slice of pizza by slapping it with his hand.

Because Miller's political career has been so divisive, this division has inevitably manifested itself in the American Jewish community, which is itself politically diverse. Jewish Americans who lean politically liberal have often criticized Miller's views as antithetical or at least in tension with Jewish values, particularly surrounding immigration. Organizations like the National Council of Jewish Women, for example, have even called for Miller's resignation. However, other Jewish organizations, like the Republican Jewish Coalition, have defended Miller.

Miller sees his faith as embedded in American politics, particularly when he faces criticism from progressives and Democrats. In 2019, he noted the irony of critics calling him a white nationalist as a Jewish American. He described this accusation as anti-Semitic. Miller, in turn, accused the Democratic Party of having a problem with anti-Semitism.