"Miller Hunts Families" – The New Wall of Protection and How Trump's Inner Circle Is Fleeing to Military Neighborhoods

Washington – In a city already under high tension, this is a signal of weight. More and more senior officials of the Trump administration are retreating to military housing complexes – places originally reserved for generals, now turned into a refuge for a civilian power elite. What was once a symbol of defense and state stability has become the private security ring of a government increasingly isolating itself from its own country. Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief ideologue on migration, has withdrawn to one of these bases with his wife Katie and their three young children. Just a few weeks ago, the family lived in an elegant neighborhood of Arlington, Virginia – until a stranger approached Katie Miller at her front door and threatened her with the words “I’m watching you.” Even before that, there had been weeks of protests: neighbors posted flyers calling him a “Nazi,” activists wrote chalk messages on the sidewalk. A group called Arlington Neighbors United for Humanity accused the couple of being complicit in the “destruction of democracy.” For Stephen Miller, the architect of Trump’s deportation policy, it was more than neighborhood criticism – it became a political symbol. When he spoke about it on television, he described it as an “organized campaign of dehumanization.”

“Good morning to the people who drew this at my kids’ park.”

“MILLER is preying on families”

After the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk and several attacks on politicians from both parties, a development accelerated that is now deeply reshaping the architecture of Washington: more and more members of the administration are living under military protection. At least half a dozen senior officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, now reside in houses on military bases.

Noem, whose home address had been published by the Daily Mail, moved into the residence of the U.S. Coast Guard commandant at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling. Rubio and Hegseth live on the so-called Generals’ Row at Fort McNair, a small, tightly secured enclave along the Anacostia River. Defense Secretary Hegseth had his house there renovated for more than $137,000 before moving in – with congressional approval. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, meanwhile, shares a home with another political appointee at Myer-Henderson Hall, right next to Arlington National Cemetery. Katie and Stephen Miller have also put their six-bedroom house in Arlington up for sale – for $3.75 million. The real estate listing promised “a rare blend of seclusion, sophistication, and striking design.” In reality, the move had long been decided: the couple now lives in a house that would normally belong to a general, financed from military budgets.

What sounds like a simple security measure is altering the political balance. The boundaries between civilian and military spheres are blurring. Never before have so many political officials lived on military bases at the same time. It is a development that researchers such as Adria Lawrence of Johns Hopkins University consider dangerous. “In a healthy democracy, the military should defend the nation as a whole, not one party,” she said. But in Trump’s Washington, the bases have become a symbol of a new understanding of power: security as privilege, distance as shield. The political background is explosive. Trump has sent the National Guard into Democrat-run cities like Los Angeles and Washington to combat “internal enemies.” He describes these deployments as “urban training exercises” and sees them as a model for a new authoritarian order. At the same time, he has revoked security details for several critics, including former Vice President Kamala Harris and his onetime national security adviser John Bolton – even though the latter was the target of an Iranian assassination plot.

Robert Pape, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, sees in all this a double risk. “Both sides are truly under threat – that must be taken seriously,” he said. But instead of creating balance, Trump is deepening the division. “He should stop using the security apparatus against his opponents.” On the bases themselves, new social hierarchies are emerging. Those who live there pay “fair market” rent, as the government emphasizes – in Hegseth’s case, around $4,655 per month. But life behind barbed wire means more than safety: it has become a status symbol. Among Trump’s senior officials, who are otherwise chauffeured through the city in armored SUVs, the competition for the largest houses has long turned into a kind of power game.

At the same time, an invisible wall is rising between the capital and those who govern it. While millions of Americans suffer under the ongoing government shutdown, while federal employees go unpaid and soldiers line up at food banks, those who shape this policy withdraw into protected zones. It is a new form of isolation that is changing the face of the capital – and quietly, but profoundly, disfiguring democracy itself.

On the military bases, something like a Trump Green Zone is emerging – a term that staff now use half-jokingly, in reference to the former government district in Baghdad. Where generals and defense officials once lived, the SUVs of the president’s advisers now stand parked. The lights stay on all night, guards are doubled, access roads closed. For the public, all of this remains largely invisible. But for democracy, it is an image of disturbing clarity: a government that barricades itself against its own citizens is no longer governing them – only ruling over them.