I don’t know who the angry, misguided individual is who has been posting anonymous signs on the Third Street Promenade denigrating Santa Monica’s administration. But after seeing his latest piece of work calling Stephen Miller “the patron saint of Santa Monica,” I felt compelled to respond. The claim is not only absurd, it is an insult to our community.
Stephen Miller is widely recognized as the central architect of some of the Trump administration’s most notorious and widely condemned immigration policies. These include the family separation policy at the U.S./Mexico border, the so-called Muslim travel ban, efforts to terminate DACA, and the severe reductions in refugee admissions. Numerous news outlets, advocacy groups, and even former officials have identified him as the driving force behind these and other cruel measures. Miller even reportedly pushed the Department of Health and Human Services to suppress research disproving his assumptions about refugees, manipulating evidence to fit his ideological goals rather than empirical reality.
I share Mayor Negrete’s view that Stephen Miller is an embarrassment to Santa Monica. To elevate him as some sort of local hero is a distortion of history and values. Our city should be proud of its legacy of diversity, compassion, and inclusion. Not tied, even symbolically, to someone who engineered policies that inflicted so much needless suffering. If our angry poster is so displeased with the way our city is being managed, he should run for city council!
Barry Enelman
Santa Monica