President-elect Donald Trump appoints longtime aide Stephen Miller, an immigration activist, to be deputy policy chief in his new administration.

Confirming the appointment, Vice President-elect JD Vance posted a congratulatory message to Miller on X on Monday and said, “This is another fantastic choice of president.”

Miller has been connected to Alabama politics in a variety of ways.

How is it related to Trump?

Miller is one of Trump’s longest-serving advisers, dating back to his first campaign for the White House. He was a senior adviser in Trump’s first term and was a central figure in many of his policy decisions, particularly on immigration, including Trump’s move to separate thousands of immigrant families as a deterrent program in 2018 .

Miller also helped craft many of Trump’s tough speeches and was often the public face of those policies during Trump’s first term and during his campaigns.

Links to Mo Brooks and Jeff Sessions

In 2021, Miller joined then-U.S. Rep. Mo Brooks in Alabama as the Huntsville Republican announced plans to run for the U.S. Senate to replace retiring Sen. Richard Shelby.

Shelby’s former chief of staff, Katie Britt, defeated Brooks in the GOP primary to win the general election.

Miller had supported Brooks’ Senate bid.

Miller previously served as communications director for U.S. Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama.

At the time, Sessions, the junior senator from Alabama, was a central critic of President Barack Obama’s immigration policies, with Miller helping to shape those efforts.

In 2016, Miller left Sessions’ office to join Trump’s presidential campaign as a senior policy adviser and later served as head of the campaign’s economic policy team.

After Trump’s election, Miller was appointed to serve as a senior adviser to the president, advising on some of the administration’s most controversial immigration policies, including building a border wall and separating immigrant families.

Target of SPLC critics

In 2019, Southern Poverty Law Center reported that Miller pitched anti-immigrant story ideas and white nationalist literature to a Breitbart reporter during his time with Sessions. That report led to calls for Miller to be fired.

After Trump’s loss to Joe Biden, Miller was quick to jump on the new administration’s immigration policies.

(Biden) is committed to being president for all Americans,” Miller wrote in a tweet after Biden’s inauguration. “It is not clear how all Americans are served by opening up travel from terror hot spots, proposing a huge amnesty, or halting the installation of security barriers along the Southwest border.”

He’s been working since he left the White House

Miller was the president of America First Legal, an organization of former Trump advisers modeled as a conservative version of American Civil Liberties Unionchallenging the Biden administration, media companies, universities and others on issues such as freedom of speech and religion and national security.

He was also a frequent presence during Trump’s campaign this year, traveling on his plane and often speaking ahead of Trump during the pre-shows at his rallies.

Miller drew cheers at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally during the race’s finale, telling the crowd that “your salvation is at hand” after what he described as “decades of abuse that have been heaped upon the good people of this nations. — their jobs stolen, looted and shipped to Mexico, Asia and foreign countries. The lives of loved ones have since been taken away by illegal aliens, criminal gangs and thugs who don’t belong in this country.”

“We stand here today at a crossroads,” he continued, calling the election “a choice between betrayal and renewal, between self-destruction and redemption, between America’s failure or America’s triumph.”

Because it is not a Cabinet position, the appointment does not need Senate confirmation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.