# Remigration **Remigration** is the far right's word for the mass removal of immigrants and their descendants, including citizens with a "migration background," from Western countries. It is the **policy payoff** of the [[Great Replacement Theory]]. If white Europeans are being deliberately replaced, "remigration" is the proposed reversal. The contemporary meaning came out of the French identitarian scene in the early 2010s. Austrian activist [[Martin Sellner]], who started out in Austria's neo-Nazi scene, made it the movement's signature demand. In about a decade the word made the full trip from the margins to state power. It began as a slogan on identitarian banners. Germany's linguists named it the worst word of 2023. A U.S. presidential candidate used it in September 2024. Since May 2025 it has been the **name of an office in the U.S. State Department**, the [[Office of Remigration]]. This page tracks that journey; the office has its own page. ## How the euphemism works The word's power is its blandness. "Remigration" implies that the people targeted are merely *returning* somewhere they already belong, as if each of them has a natural "home" elsewhere to be sent back to. The framing does three things at once: 1. It borrows the legitimate administrative vocabulary of immigration and return policy. Before the far right took it up, "remigration" was a social-science term for migrants going home voluntarily. 2. It hides the fact that the targets include people born as citizens. 3. It turns what critics call **ethnic cleansing** or mass expulsion into something that sounds like routine policy. It is a textbook concept-laundering operation, parallel to the way [[Ethnopluralism]] disguises racial exclusion as a celebration of diversity. [[Ethnic Cleansing]] is itself a perpetrator's euphemism that the world adopted; remigration performs the same function for a program that has not yet been carried out in full. The euphemism also gives cover when challenged. In October 2025, after a DHS post read simply "remigrate," the department's spokesperson answered critics with a dictionary definition (see below). The defense rests on the gap between the word's dictionary meaning and what its originators use it to mean, and that gap is the whole point. ## Timeline: from identitarian banner to State Department door | Date | Event | Where | |---|---|---| | 1960s–1983 | French ethnonationalists campaign for mass repatriation without using the word: the journal *Europe-Action* (an ancestor of the [[Nouvelle Droite]]) demands it, and in 1983 National Front secretary-general Jean-Pierre Stirbois promises "on les renverra" ("we will send them back") and wins nearly 17% in Dreux | France | | Early 2010s | French "identitarian" activists invent remigration as an anti-immigrant slogan, per political scientist Jean-Yves Camus; Belgium's Vlaams Belang is using it by 2011 | France, Belgium | | 2014 | Laurent Ozon, a former adviser to Marine Le Pen, becomes spokesman of the Mouvement pour la Remigration, founded in Paris on September 21, 2014, which runs poster campaigns that fall; *Le Figaro* reports the Bloc Identitaire's push for the term | France | | 2015 | [[Génération Identitaire]] in France adds remigration to its platform | France | | 2017 on | "Remigration jetzt!" ("Remigration now!") becomes a fixture at Austrian far-right protests | Austria | | 2019–2021 | The term enters party politics: an FPÖ branch calls for remigration (2019), the [[AfD]] puts it in its European-election program (2019) and its platform (2021), and the Dutch PVV adopts it (2021) | Austria, Germany, Netherlands | | March 2022 | [[Éric Zemmour]] proposes a "ministry of remigration" during his presidential campaign | France | | Nov 25, 2023 | [[Martin Sellner]] presents a remigration master plan to a private meeting in Potsdam attended by AfD members | Germany | | Jan 2024 | Correctiv exposes the Potsdam meeting, setting off Germany's largest anti-far-right protests in decades; on January 15 a jury of linguists names "Remigration" the German *Unwort des Jahres* (non-word of the year) for 2023 | Germany | | 2024 | Sellner publishes *Remigration: Ein Vorschlag* ("Remigration: A Proposal") | Austria | | Weekend of Sept 14–15, 2024 | [[Donald Trump]] posts on [[Truth Social]] that he will "return Kamala's illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration)" | United States | | Nov 2024 | Sellner, barred from entering the U.S., addresses [[Jared Taylor]]'s [[American Renaissance]] conference near Nashville by video link | United States | | May 17, 2025 | First [[Remigration Summit]], in Gallarate near Milan | Italy | | May 29, 2025 | [[Marco Rubio]]'s State Department reorganization, sent to Congress, includes an **[[Office of Remigration]]** | United States | | June 12 & 15, 2025 | Trump on Truth Social: "I am reversing the Invasion. It's called Remigration." Three days later: "Our Federal Government will continue to be focused on the REMIGRATION of Aliens to the places from where they came" | United States | | Oct 14, 2025 | The [[Department of Homeland Security]] X account posts one word, "remigrate," linking to a CBP self-deportation site | United States | | Nov 28, 2025 | Two days after two West Virginia National Guard members were shot in Washington, DHS posts: "The stakes have never been higher, and the goal has never been more clear: Remigration now." | United States | | Late May 2026 | Second Remigration Summit in Portugal (May 29 or 30; Figueira da Foz or Porto, reports differ), co-organized by Sellner; former Border Patrol commander-at-large Gregory Bovino and [[Jared Taylor]] attend as "VIP Guests" | Portugal | | June 25, 2026 | Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) introduces the **Remigration Act** (H.R. 9479), pairing removals with expanded denaturalization and a narrowed birthright citizenship | United States | | Sept 21, 2026 | A *Washington Post* investigation details the Office of Remigration's third-country deportation deals (see [[Office of Remigration]]) | United States | ## Origins: a French invention with an Austrian salesman The word is old. It comes from the Latin *remigrare*, "to return home." For most of the twentieth century it was a neutral term in migration studies, used for things like postwar returns of displaced people and migrants going home after economic cycles. The *idea* behind the far-right version is old too. French ethnonationalists demanded mass "repatriation" in the 1960s, and the National Front won votes in 1983 promising to "send them back." What was missing was a respectable label. The identitarian movement supplied the label. Political scientist Jean-Yves Camus, quoted in *The Bulwark*, credits French identitarian activists with turning remigration into an anti-immigrant slogan in the 2010s. The Mouvement pour la Remigration (founded 2014, with former Marine Le Pen adviser Laurent Ozon as spokesman) and the Bloc Identitaire carried it in France, and [[Génération Identitaire]] made it formal policy in 2015. Activists chose the word partly because it already sounded administrative and harmless. In German it even carried positive associations from postwar returns. That let it stand in for "deportation," which had become a word nobody could say in polite company. [[Martin Sellner]] became the term's chief salesman. His path shows how the neo-Nazi scene and the identitarian rebrand connect. As a teenager he was active in Austria's neo-Nazi milieu. In 2012 he co-founded the Identitarian Movement of Austria after discovering the French Bloc Identitaire online. The ideology did not soften; the presentation did. Remigration was the presentation layer applied to an old demand. ## Breakthrough in Europe For years the word lived mostly in identitarian circles and on protest banners. It moved into party platforms between 2019 and 2021, as the FPÖ, the AfD and the Dutch PVV adopted it. In 2022 Zemmour gave it a ministry, on paper. The decisive moment came on **November 25, 2023**. At a private meeting in Potsdam, Sellner presented a detailed remigration plan to attendees that included AfD members and some CDU figures. The plan covered asylum seekers, non-citizens, and "non-assimilated" citizens. When Correctiv exposed the meeting in January 2024, the scandal set off Germany's largest anti-far-right protests in decades. It also pushed the word into everyday political language, the opposite of what the protesters wanted. Days later a jury of linguists named "Remigration" Germany's *Unwort des Jahres* for 2023. Since then the term has appeared in or near far-right platforms in Italy, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the UK and Finland. The first [[Remigration Summit]] (Gallarate, May 2025) turned it into the brand for a transnational network. ## Crossing the Atlantic The American adoption happened fast and from the top. - **The candidate (September 2024).** Trump's Truth Social post about Haitian migrants in Springfield, Ohio, brought the word into mainstream American politics. Sellner, quoted by the *Washington Post*, called it the payoff he had been working toward: "I always thought that this would be a meta political victory to make this term known." - **The movement connection (November 2024).** Sellner, barred from the United States, addressed [[Jared Taylor]]'s [[American Renaissance]] conference by video link, linking the European brand to the American white-nationalist circuit. - **The office (May 2025).** The State Department reorganization created an [[Office of Remigration]] inside the bureau that had been built to resettle refugees. The department's 136-page notification to Congress said it would "actively facilitate the voluntary return of migrants to their country of origin or legal status." - **The president (June 2025).** During the Los Angeles Guard deployment and the "No Kings" protests, Trump adopted the word as policy: "America was invaded and occupied. I am reversing the Invasion. It's called Remigration." - **The department (October–November 2025).** DHS posted "remigrate" on October 14, 2025. When critics objected, spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin replied, "Is the English language too difficult for you?" and attached a dictionary definition. On November 28, two days after the shooting of two National Guard members in Washington, DHS posted "Remigration now," the English rendering of the Austrian protest chant "Remigration jetzt!" - **The bridge (May 2026).** [[Gregory Bovino]], the Border Patrol commander who led the 2025–26 city surges before retiring in March 2026, attended the second Remigration Summit, co-organized by Sellner in Portugal, as a "VIP Guest," alongside Jared Taylor. - **The bill (June 2026).** Rep. Andy Ogles's Remigration Act (H.R. 9479) would strip citizenship from naturalized citizens convicted of certain crimes within ten years of naturalization. It would also set up a DHS task force to review Biden-era asylum, refugee and adjustment grants, and limit birthright citizenship to children with at least one parent who is a citizen, a lawful permanent resident, or on active military duty. That would exclude children of temporary visa holders as well as of people here unlawfully. - **The money (September 2026).** The *Washington Post* reported that the Office of Remigration had pledged at least $410 million for deportation deals with 31 countries. The paper attributes the figure to internal documents, and no one has independently confirmed it; see [[Office of Remigration]]. > [!note] What changed in translation > Officially, the U.S. government defines remigration narrowly: removing people with no legal status, or helping them leave "voluntarily." European identitarians use the word for something wider, which is removing *citizens* of migrant background. The American version has not reached that point in policy. But its edges are moving in that direction. The Ogles bill reaches naturalized citizens through denaturalization and the U.S.-born children of non-permanent residents through birthright citizenship. The third-country program sends people to countries they have never lived in, which ends the pretense that they are "returning" anywhere. The dictionary defense covers the narrow meaning. The word was picked for the wide one. ## Significance for the KB Remigration is the action item of the whole identitarian cluster: - [[Renaud Camus]] supplied the diagnosis: replacement. - [[Alain de Benoist]] and the [[Nouvelle Droite]] supplied the strategy (metapolitics) and the cover story (ethnopluralism). - "Remigration" is the prescription, the thing the movement actually wants done. Its path is the cleanest case study in the vault of **metapolitics working on schedule**. Sellner and his allies set out to "coin terms and shape concepts and make them popular enough so that they get picked up by big right-wing parties." That is how Gernot Schmidt, one of the network's organizers, described the goal. Within roughly a decade the word went from a French poster campaign to a German party platform to an American president's posts to a door in Foggy Bottom. The pattern to watch is the same each time: a fringe coinage becomes an official euphemism, and the euphemism's dictionary meaning is used to defend it while its movement meaning drives the policy. ## See Also - [[Office of Remigration]] — the State Department office named for the term - [[Third-Country Removal]] — the deportation practice the office funds - [[Great Replacement Theory]] — the conspiracy remigration claims to "solve" - [[Identitarian Movement]] — the movement that popularized the term - [[Martin Sellner]] — its chief popularizer - [[Remigration Summit]] — the transnational conference network built around it - [[Gregory Bovino]] — the deportation-surge commander who crossed over to the movement - [[Ethnopluralism]] — the parallel laundering euphemism - [[Ethnic Cleansing]] — the analytical frame critics apply - [[Hegseth Normandy D-Day Speech]] — the "invasion" frame that licenses the policy vocabulary