12/06/2026
"Remigration" is a clean word for an ugly idea: ethnic cleansing. Last month several hundred of Europe's far right gathered in a hotel near Porto, Portugal, to turn it into policy.
Present were a wide cross-section of militants, far-right media organisations, content creators, as well as cryptocurrency and AI advocates.
But the most revealing presence was a large cadre of Americans. This included former ICE boss and Trump’s ‘deporter in chief’ Gregory Bovino.
Bovino’s speech won a standing ovation. This enthusiasm shows what the remigration project is really all about.
Remigration in practice is what ICE is doing in the US, but at a larger scale. European activists are clearly eager to learn from those who already do this kind of mass violence.
At one point, the crowd chanted "USA! USA!".
It’s a remarkable turn for a movement that has long viewed America with suspicion. But as Bovino put it: "the problems are the same problems with the same solutions."
Stefano Forte of the NY Young Republicans attacked democracy itself, seeing it as an obstacle to enforcing mass deportations. He said that US lacks "political will" for true mass deportations and that people "demand a dictator."
The leaders of the remigration movement said they need to import American political lobbying strategies. First they need to make the idea seem respectable, presenting it as a cool-headed policy response to increasing insecurity, cultural decay and violence against women.
Their first step was Dutch Eva Vlaardingerbroek introducing a petition called the Save Europe Act which, if it reaches one million signatures, would be presented to the European Union as part of the ‘European Citizens' Initiative’.
