Stephen Miller says Biden would be child smugglers’ ‘best friend’

One of President Trump’s top advisers on immigration said Wednesday that Democrat Joseph R. Biden would be the “best friend” of child smugglers if he’s elected president, predicting that Mr. Biden would reverse the president’s crackdown on human trafficking.

“Joe Biden would be the best friend that child smugglers and child traffickers have ever had in the White House,” said Stephen Miller, a top White House aide who said he was speaking in his capacity as a campaign adviser. “His policies would incentivize child smuggling and child trafficking on an epic, global scale.”

Mr. Miller said Mr. Biden would implement a nationwide “catch-and-release” program that would allow illegal immigrants to be freed within the U.S. to begin the process of seeking asylum, which can take years.

“Within a week of that happening, there would be a rush on the border on a global scale unseen before in the whole of human history,” Mr. Miller said. “It would be the largest gift to traffickers, smugglers and coyotes that you could ever possibly conceive.”

The Biden campaign did not immediately return a request for comment.
Mr. Miller said border towns in Arizona, where the president is campaigning on Wednesday, and other border states would be “overwhelmed by the unprecedented influx of people” under the Democrat’s policies.

“None of those people will ever be removed from the country,” Mr. Miller said. “The Biden plan would be an open border, completely, totally. Whether you are a Democrat, whether you are an independent, whether you’re a Republican … this plan should cause you to be outraged.”

Trump administration officials say the president’s decision last year to end “catch and release” has dramatically reduced the flow of illegal migrants, although cartels have been devising ways around the new policy.

Mr. Miller also said the administration’s announcement on Wednesday of a cap of 15,000 refugees for 2021, a record low, should appeal to taxpayers in battleground states such as Michigan and Minnesota. He said those states have borne “disproportionately” the share of resettling refugees from countries such as Somalia, Syria and Yemen, all of which have been barred by Mr. Trump.