Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Stephen Miller: ‘As A Jew, I Am Outraged’ Over AOC’s Concentration Camp Comment

White House senior adviser Stephen Miller condemned Representative Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez for her “sinful comment” comparing detention facilities on the United States-Mexico border to concentration camps.

On Fox News on Sunday, Miller explained that he was especially insulted by the “historical smear” because he is Jewish.

“As a Jew, as an American Jew, I am profoundly outraged by the remarks by Ocasio-Cortez,” he said. “It is a historical smear. It is a sinful comment. It minimizes the death of six million of my Jewish brothers and sisters. It minimizes their suffering. And it paints every patriotic law enforcement officer as a war criminal.”

Ocasio-Cortez was accused of insensitivity to Holocaust survivors by some on the right last month when she said that the U.S. government “has established concentration camps on the southern border of the United States for immigrants, where they are being brutalized with dehumanizing conditions and dying.”

Miller is known for his hardline stance on immigration — he was behind the controversial travel ban on visitors from Muslim-majority countries — and is currently working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to create even harsher immigration policies. Miller, whose family successfully fled Anti Semitism in Europe, has claimed that it was a “simple decision” to separate families at the border and that he’d be “happy” with no new refugees.

Alyssa Fisher is a writer at the Forward. Email her at [email protected], or follow her on Twitter at @alyssalfisher

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse.

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.