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Stephen Miller’s Uncle Calls Him An ‘Immigration Hypocrite’ in a New Column

3 minute read

Stephen Miller, a senior advisor to President Donald Trump, has been branded an “immigration hypocrite” by his uncle, David S. Glosser, in a column in which Glosser describes his Jewish family’s immigrant roots and makes a veiled comparison between the Trump administration’s policies and Nazism.

Miller is an architect of several of the Trump administration’s controversial immigration policies, including the travel ban and family separation. Behind the scenes, Miller has also helped reduce the number of refugees being allowed into the U.S. to its lowest level in decades.

Miller’s uncle, David S. Glosser, a retired neuropsychologist, wrote in Politico: “If my nephew’s ideas on immigration had been in force a century ago, our family would have been wiped out.”

Glosser told the story of his father, Wolf-Leib Glosser (Miller’s grandfather), a Jewish refugee from Antopol, in what is now Belarus, who arrived in the U.S. in 1903 after fleeing anti-Jewish violence.

“I shudder at the thought of what would have become of the Glossers had the same policies Stephen so coolly espouses — the travel ban, the radical decrease in refugees, the separation of children from their parents, and even talk of limiting citizenship for legal immigrants — been in effect when Wolf-Leib made his desperate bid for freedom,” Glosser wrote.

“The Glossers came to the U.S. just a few years before the fear and prejudice of the ‘America First’ nativists of the day closed U.S. borders to Jewish refugees,” he continued. “Had Wolf-Leib waited, his family would likely have been murdered by the Nazis along with all but seven of the 2,000 Jews who remained in Antopol. I would encourage Stephen to ask himself if the chanting, torch-bearing Nazis of Charlottesville, whose support his boss seems to court so cavalierly, do not envision a similar fate for him.”

Glosser’s comments come just a day after the first anniversary of the Charlottesville “Unite the Right” rally, during which white nationalists marched while chanting “you will not replace us” and one anti-fascist counter-protester was killed. Only a smattering of white nationalists showed up for an anniversary march in Washington, D.C. on Sunday, and they were greatly outnumbered by counter-protestors.

“President Trump wants to make us believe that these desperate migrants are an existential threat to the United States; the most powerful nation in world history and a nation made strong by immigrants,” Glosser wrote. “Trump and my nephew both know their immigrant and refugee roots. Yet, they repeat the insults and false accusations of earlier generations against these refugees to make them seem less than human.”

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Write to Billy Perrigo at billy.perrigo@time.com