Trump Makes Immigration Hardliner Stephen Miller Chief of Staff

President Donald Trump has named Stephen Miller, the adviser behind his mass deportation strategy, as White House chief of staff. Miller replaces Susie Wiles and takes the post on Monday, Nov. 9, 2026, Trump said in a post on his social network, Truth Social.

For Mexico, the appointment puts the official most closely identified with Trump’s hard line on migration in charge of the White House staff. El País México reported that the choice points to an even tougher course for the administration after Republicans lost badly in this week’s midterm elections.

Wiles moves to political operations

In his announcement, Trump called Miller one of his most trusted advisers and said Wiles would join his political operations team. He thanked her and wrote that she “has done a great job.” Univision reported that the administration confirmed Wiles will lead its political operations and described the change as a reorganization of the executive team.

Wiles handed in her resignation on Thursday night, according to a senior White House official cited by El País. She wrote on X that it was her last day in the job and that serving Trump had been the honor of her life.

El País credits Wiles with running the White House as a disciplined operation over the past year and a half. In recent weeks she had come under criticism after it emerged that her daughter, Katie, works for a US lobbying firm that signed a monthly contract in February to represent Republika Srpska, the Serb-majority entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Two senior Trump campaign figures who had worked with Wiles, James Blair and Chris LaCivita, traveled to Bosnia in early October to help the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), the party led by pro-Russian separatist Milorad Dodik, win an election. The episode set off a political storm among Republicans weeks before the US vote.

A shake-up after the midterms

The announcement came three days after voters handed Democrats their largest majority in Congress in decades. El País described Wiles as the first major scapegoat for the result and said her exit appears related to the public’s rejection of Trump’s politics.

After the results came in, Trump had raised the idea of working with the new Democratic-led Congress. Miller is one of the administration figures Democratic lawmakers dislike most, and El País reported that his promotion could lead to a far more combative relationship with them.

Who Stephen Miller is

Miller is about 40 years old and has worked with Trump for a decade, since the first presidential campaign. Until now he served as deputy chief of staff and domestic policy adviser, effectively Wiles’s second in command. He wrote some of Trump’s toughest measures, including the plan for mass deportations, and his influence has been spreading into foreign policy.

His views on immigration are so harsh that Trump once joked about them. At an event with business leaders a year ago, Trump said Miller’s truest thoughts might “go a little too far,” according to El País.

In a CNN interview in January, Miller argued that the world is governed by strength and power, and defended the idea that the United States could take Greenland because it is a superpower. The administration later reached an agreement with Greenland and Denmark to expand the US presence on the island without buying or controlling it.

What it means for Mexico

El País links Miller’s outlook to the National Security Strategy the White House published last December. That document names the American continent as the top US priority and lists immigration and drug trafficking, Miller’s two main concerns, as the leading international risks the country faces.

Miller is also one of four officials Trump put in charge of overseeing Venezuela in January. The others are Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Vice President J.D. Vance.

Miller starts as chief of staff on Monday.

Sources: El País México, univision.com