Former Trump advisor Stephen Miller has slammed The New York Times over a guest essay calling for non-citizens to be given the right to vote in US elections.
Miller – who has been credited with creating President Trump’s famously draconian immigration policies, including his Muslim ban – said: ‘The New York Times opinion piece is extraordinarily revealing for the mindset of the left – which is they want to erode and ultimately erase the very idea of American citizenship.’
Speaking on Fox News, he continued: ‘Voting is not just a right. It’s also a responsibility. You have to learn our country’s history, its culture, its language, its values to be able to make an informed decision about voting.’
The ‘guest essay’ – which was penned by noncitizen Atossa Araxia Abrahamian – was published Wednesday ‘as part of a series exploring bold ideas to revitalize and renew the American experiment.’
In the piece, Abrahamian – who hails from Switzerland, but now lives in Brooklyn – staked a case for letting people living legally in America such as non-immigrant visa holders and people with green cards vote in US elections.
Former Trump advisor Stephen Miller has slammed The New York Times for publishing an opinion column titled ‘There Is No Good Reason You Should Have to Be a Citizen to Vote’
In her piece, Abrahamian described the types of noncitizens she believes should be allowed to vote, including: ‘People with green cards, people here on work visas, and those who arrived in the country as children and are still waiting for permanent papers. This type of illegal immigrant is known as a ‘dreamer’
And in his interview with Fox News, Miller seized on that final category, claiming The New York Times appeared to be pushing for illegal aliens to also vote in elections.
He stated: ‘Americans are Americans. Citizens are citizens and dreamers, so-called, are illegal immigrants… We deprive people of this country of their language, of their ability to be able to speak clearly, and to say: ‘No, if you come here illegally you are not a citizen. You are not an American. You don’t have the right to vote in our elections. You do not have the right to occupy American jobs.”
Miller added: ‘These are not controversial thoughts. These are basic fundamental ideas to what it means to have and to keep a nation.
Former Trump immigration czar Stephen Miller has blasted a New York Times guest essay calling for non-citizens to be given the right to vote in US elections
The piece was written by Swiss writer Atossa Araxia Abrahamian, pictured, who lives in Brooklyn but is not entitled to vote in US elections
In the piece, Abrahamian wrote: ‘Nearly 15 million people living legally in the United States… don’t have a say in matters of politics and policy because we — resident foreign nationals, or ‘aliens’ as we are sometimes called — cannot vote.’
She staked a case for allowing noncitizens to be able to cast ballots, saying: ‘Allowing people to vote gives them even more of a sense of investment in their towns, cities, communities and country. There’s a detachment that comes with not being able to vote in the place where you live.’
Abrahamian conceded that the move would be beneficial to Americans, as immigrants – both legal and illegal – tend to swing left.
‘It’s time for Democrats to radically expand the electorate. Proposing federal legislation to give millions of young people and essential workers a clear road to citizenship is a good start.’
She continued: ‘Democrats are likely to be the biggest beneficiaries of this change — at least at first. But it could have interesting ripple effects: Elected Republicans might be induced to appeal to a more diverse constituency or perhaps to enthuse their constituents so deeply that they, too, start to vote in greater numbers.’
Abrahamian ultimately declared: ‘Expanding the franchise in this way would give American democracy new life, restore immigrants’ trust in government and send a powerful message of inclusion to the rest of the world.’
But Miller hit back on Fox, saying the naturalization process that immigrants go through to achieve citizenship and be able to vote remains fundamental.
‘That’s why this country has a naturalization process – a lawful process to go through to learn who we are and what we’re about. One of the things that we did during the Trump Administration that’s actually been reversed by President Biden was we actually improved and upgraded the naturalization process to put a greater emphasis on American history and American values,’ he stated.
People who voted illegally in US elections – including permanent residents in the country on green cards – face extremely harsh punishments if they are caught doing so, including deportation.
New York Times accused of hypocrisy for letting reporter call Trump supporters ‘enemies of the state’ months after firing journalist who said Biden’s inauguration gave her ‘chills’
The New York Times has been accused of double standards after a reporter kept her job after implying Trump supporters were ‘enemies of the state’ months just months after another journalist was axed for saying Biden’s inauguration gave her ‘chills.’
The Grey Lady has yet to comment on Justice Department reporter Katie Benner’s incendiary tweets on supporters of former US President Donald Trump.
She wrote: ‘Today’s #January6thSelectCommittee underscores the America’s current, essential natsec dilemma: Work to combat legitimate national security threats now entails calling a politician’s supporters enemies of the state,’ Benner tweeted.
‘As Americans, we believe that state power should not be used to work against a political figure or a political party,’ she added. ‘But what happens if a politician seems to threaten the state? If the politician continues to do so out of office and his entire party supports that threat?’
But critics of the left-leaning newspaper are questioning why freelance editor Lauren Wolfe was sacked for making comments on her elation regarding Biden’s arrival at Joint Base Andrews just prior to his inauguration on social media back in January.
Benner also tweeted that the committee Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi appointed would ultimately resolve the ‘dilemma’ of Trump and his supporters threatening the country’s well-being, claiming the issue remains ‘unresolved’ after both impeachments of the former President as well as the Russia investigation.
‘That leaves it up to voters, making even more essential free, fair access to the polls,’ Benner concluded.
Although Benner deleted the tweets within hours of posting – claiming they were ‘unclearly worded’ – she offered no apology despite sparking a wave of backlash on social media.
Unlike Benner, Wolfe was not so lucky when she posted a seemingly innocuous pro-Biden tweet on January 19, saying she had ‘chills’ upon the then-president elect’s inauguration.
Lauren Wolfe was fired after posting this tweet the day before Joe Biden’s inauguration as president
Pictured: Unlike Benner, Lauren Wolfe was sacked by the Times after similarly violating the paper’s social media policy
Wolfe later defended her former employer. She has not commented on her former colleague’s tweets
However, the Times disagrees with that sentiment, with a spokesperson telling Fox News that Wolfe was not let go over ‘a single tweet,’ but rather a culmination of a series of warnings regarding her behavior on social media.
No further information on Wolfe’s other alleged transgressions were shared.
Both reporters violated the newspaper’s editorial mandate, which clearly states that journalists must not make offensive comments or show any political bias, both in and out of the newsroom.
‘In social media posts, our journalists must not express partisan opinions, promote political views, endorse candidates, make offensive comments or do anything else that undercuts The Times’s journalistic reputation,’ the Times’ editorial standard reads.
The paper has been hit by a string of other recent scandals, including Donald McNeil Jr, a Times health reporter who drunkenly used a racial slur during a conversation with a student group in Peru in 2019, according to the Times.
The New York Times has reportedly parted ways with one of Wolfe after she sparked mockery on social media over a tweet celebrating President Biden’s inauguration
Meanwhile, editors James Bennet and Bari Weiss resigned last year over the demands of ‘woke’ colleagues.
The paper’s conservative columnist Bret Stephens went on to express fury that editors spiked his column criticizing the ouster of McNeil Jr.
Bennet stepped down after furious internal backlash that he had allowed Senator Tom Cotton, an Arkansas Republican, to publish an op-ed arguing for the military to be used to quell Black Lives Matter protests.
The op-ed, titled ‘Send in the Troops’, called for federal troops to respond if there was violent rioting in major U.S. cities.
Publisher AG Sulzberger initially stood behind the decision to publish the piece, but the paper’s leadership buckled in the wake of Twitter backlash, much of it led by the paper’s own employees.
Many Times employees tweeted that running Cotton’s essay put ‘black lives in danger,’ including the lives of black reporters.