White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller sparked backlash after a video that went viral on Friday in which he argued that undocumented immigrants are not entitled to due process protections when being removed from the United States. Miller said providing full legal proceedings would make deportations impossible.
“There are 15 million illegal aliens,” Miller said. “If each were given a full trial, deportations would take centuries. They had no due process entering the country, and they are not entitled to it when being removed.”
Legal precedent, however, has long recognized that constitutional protections can apply to noncitizens physically present in the United States. In Wong Wing v. United States (1896), the Supreme Court ruled that the Fifth Amendment’s due process clause protects noncitizens from arbitrary detention or punishment.
Although immigration proceedings are civil rather than criminal, courts have repeatedly held that people facing removal are still entitled to basic procedural safeguards, as Aaron Reichlin-Melchik of the American Immigration Council explained on X:
Immigration researchers have also challenged the number Miller cited in the video. The Pew Research Center estimates there are roughly 10.5 to 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, a figure that has remained relatively stable for several years.
The remarks also fit into Miller’s broader recent messaging on immigration. Earlier this week, he described birthright citizenship as an “illegal suicidal” policy and argued that immigration causes long-term social harm extending across generations:
A New York Times report published in December said Miller has increasingly framed immigration not only as a border enforcement issue but as a multigenerational question tied to citizenship and assimilation. In media appearances, he has pointed to communities such as Somali Americans as examples of what he claims is persistent failure to assimilate.
Miller’s comments arrive as the Supreme Court prepares to hear a challenge to President Trump’s executive order seeking to end birthright citizenship for children born to undocumented immigrants and certain temporary residents—an order that lower courts have blocked as inconsistent with the Fourteenth Amendment.
