White House pushes back on claim Stephen Miller made anti-refugee remark

The White House pushed back Monday after senior adviser Stephen Miller was quoted in a new book as saying he’d be happy if “not a single refugee foot ever again touched American soil.”

White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at a press briefing that she’s “not aware” that Miller has ever made such a statement, and that it’s “certainly not the policy of the administration” to eventually decrease refugee resettlements to zero.

The Associated Press reported earlier Monday that Miller is quoted speaking derisively about refugees in a book from ex-White House aide Cliff Sims.

{mosads}Sims, a former White House communications staffer, wrote in “Team of Vipers” that Miller made the remark while the two were having a discussion about immigration.

Sims went on to claim that Miller, an advocate of stringent immigration laws, would walk over to the press office to demand a release be put out whenever a refugee or immigrant committed a “gruesome” crime.

The Trump administration has made curbing legal and illegal immigration a cornerstone of its agenda. The administration has reduced the number of refugees that can be resettled in the U.S. in each of Trump’s first two years in office, capping the figure at 30,000 for fiscal year 2019.

Trump late last year issued an executive order prohibiting certain immigrants from claiming asylum in the U.S. The measure was blocked by a federal court, and the Trump administration has appealed.

The president last week signed legislation ending a 35 day partial government shutdown that was triggered by his demand for $5.7 billion to construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.