A firestorm of controversy erupted this week when U.S. Representative Mark Pocan (D-WI) posted a social media comment telling Stephen Miller, a Jewish White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, to “go back to 1930’s Germany.” The remark, made on June 25, 2025, in response to Miller’s post about immigration, has drawn widespread condemnation from Republican lawmakers, White House officials, and Jewish advocacy groups, who labeled it antisemitic due to its reference to the Nazi era’s persecution of Jews.
The Incident and Its Trigger
Pocan’s comment targeted Miller’s X post, which described New York City’s mayoral primary win by democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim Ugandan immigrant, as a “warning” of unchecked migration. Pocan responded, “Racist f*ck. Go back to 1930’s Germany,” invoking a period synonymous with the Holocaust and Nazi atrocities against Jews. Miller, whose ancestors fled anti-Jewish pogroms in Belarus in the early 20th century, has been a polarizing figure as a key architect of President Donald Trump’s immigration policies, including mass deportation initiatives.
