REMIGRATION

How Trumpism is following the far right in Europe toward mass expulsion of immigrants

- ISABELA DIAS

IN SEPTEMBER, Martin Sellner, an Austrian ethno-nationalist leader and staunch proponent of the mass expulsion of immigrants-banned from TikTok, YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook, barred from entry to the UK, deported from Switzerland, and only recently allowed back into Germanyshowed a reporter from the Washington Post his phone. It was a photo of a post from Donald Trump with one word highlighted: "remigration." Here, Sellner said, was "vindication"-proof that his European nationalism was going "international." He wasn't the only one who was excited.

Former White House senior adviser Stephen Miller, the architect behind Trump's draconian immigration policies, reposted his old boss with an all-caps addendum: "THE TRUMP PLAN TO END THE INVASION OF SMALL TOWN AMERICA: REMIGRATION!" "Remigration," as a 2019 article from the Associated Press explains, is the concept of returning "immigrants to their native lands in what amounts to a softstyle ethnic cleansing." It is a response to the "great replacement" theory that claims white people are being intentionally supplanted by nonwhite immigrants.