Leah Millis/Reuters
White House adviser Stephen Miller was the driving force behind President Trump’s decision to enforce the family separation policy at U.S. borders, according to The New York Times. Unlike Trump, who has publicly claimed to hate the practice, Miller told the Times it was a “simple decision.” “No nation can have the policy that whole classes of people are immune from immigration law or enforcement. … The message is that no one is exempt from immigration law,” he was quoted as saying. The immigration hardliner had argued in recent months for “zero tolerance” policies and a new way to end the common practice of “catch and release,” which allowed illegal immigrants to be released into the country while their cases were being processed. Miller also reportedly pushed Trump and other White House officials to begin using deterrence policies, and after border numbers spiked in April, he was said to have been instrumental in convincing Trump to resort to the “nuclear option” now so widely being condemned as inhumane.