3 days ago
The Trump Admin Reportedly Wants An Office of Remigration. That's Alarming.
A sweeping plan to revamp the State Department would establish an Office of Remigration, a term popularized by far-right activists in Europe and white nationalists who want the mass removal of immigrants.
The proposed new office was included in a 100-page-long notice to Congress from the State Department, which has been viewed by publications including CNN, Wired and The Handbasket.
That document reportedly describes the Office of Remigration as a 'hub for immigration issues and repatriation tracking' aimed at facilitating 'interagency coordination' on 'removals/repatriations.' It also reportedly details using State Department funds to help advance 'the voluntary return of migrants to their country of origin or legal status.'
The term 'remigration' is an alarming one that's effectively 'a euphemism for ethnically cleansing non-white people from Western countries,' Christopher Mathias previously wrote for HuffPost.
'Remigration is an immigration policy embraced by extremists that calls for the removal of all migrants—including 'non-assimilated' citizens—with the goal of creating white ethnostates in Western countries,' Wired's David Gilbert explains.
It's been promoted by Germany's far-right party, Alternative für Deutschland, as well as Austria's far-right Freedom Party, and the term is rooted in the premise of forcibly deporting non-white people from Europe regardless of citizenship status, according to the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. The Freedom Party, for instance, has backed the 'remigration of uninvited foreigners' with the goal of promoting a more 'homogenous' country, The Associated Press reports.
It's also a term that Trump and his senior adviser Stephen Miller have used before.
'[We will] return Kamala's illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration),' Trump wrote in a September 2024 Truth Social post. 'I will save our cities and towns in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and all across America.'
'THE TRUMP PLAN TO END THE INVASION OF SMALL TOWN AMERICA: REMIGRATION!' Miller added on X.
Experts note that remigration is often promoted in conjunction with the racist and conspiratorial 'Great Replacement' theory, which claims that elites are trying to displace white people with people of color in Western countries. Far-right leaders believe the answer to this supposed threat is to remove immigrants and people of color wholesale.
The White House and State Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
