Last week, Republican Ohio gubernatorial hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy challenged other Republicans over their idea that ancestry or heritage is what makes someone truly American.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe idea that a \u2018heritage American\u2019 is more American than another American is un-American at its core,\u201d Ramaswamy, who was born to Indian immigrant parents, said during Turning Point USA\u2019s annual conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n Remigration \u2014 once a fringe far-right notion advocating the deportation of ethnic minorities \u2014 is now gaining traction in United States Republican circles as President Donald Trump\u2019s second term enters the final weeks of its first year.<\/p>\n Earlier this year, reports said that the US State Department was considering creating a department of remigration. A few months later, the Department of Homeland Security posted in favour of remigration online.<\/p>\n But it is not just American far-right figures evoking the idea of remigration; European far-right leaders are also joining in.<\/p>\n Here is a closer look at what remigration means and what its origins are.<\/p>\n What is remigration?<\/p>\n Broadly, remigration refers to when an immigrant voluntarily returns to their country of origin.<\/p>\n However, in the context of far-right movements, remigration is a method of ethnic cleansing.<\/p>\n For white ethnonationalists, remigration is a process through which all non-white people are forcibly removed from traditionally white countries.<\/p>\n What are the origins of remigration?<\/p>\n Ideas of remigration trace back to Nazi Germany in the late 1930s. The Nazis attempted to \u201cremigrate\u201d the Jews in Germany to Madagascar.<\/p>\n But the concept got wind through the work of Renaud Camus, a French novelist who devised the Great Replacement conspiracy theory in his 2011 book, Le Grand Remplacement.<\/p>\n His widely debunked white nationalist theory suggests that elites are replacing white Christians in the West with non-white, primarily Muslim, people through mass migration and demographic changes. Camus calls this \u201cgenocide by substitution\u201d.<\/p>\n Far-right nationalists in Europe and beyond have borrowed ideas from this theory.<\/p>\n Heidi Beirich, an expert on the American and European far-right movements, told Al Jazeera that the term remigration is \u201crelatively new\u201d in far-right circles.<\/p>\n Beirich said that the concept was popularised by Martin Sellner<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sellner, 36, is the leader of Austria\u2019s ultranationalist Identitarian Movement<\/a>, a far\u2011right group known for anti-immigration activism and promoting ethnonationalist ideology. Ethnonationalists define the nation primarily by shared ethnicity, ancestry, culture and heritage.<\/p>\n \u201cRemigration advocates the forced removal of non-white people from what Sellner and others with his beliefs view as historically white countries, basically Europe, Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand,\u201d Beirich explained.<\/p>\n Beirich said remigration in essence, is a \u201cpolicy solution to the white supremacist \u2018Great Replacement\u2019 conspiracy theory\u201d.<\/p>\n Do different groups have different ideas?<\/p>\n There are strands of nationalists beyond ethnonationalism.<\/p>\n Civic nationalists, who also called liberal nationalists or constitutional nationalists, define the nation by shared political values, laws and institutions, regardless of ethnicity. They believe that a person belongs to a country if they hold legal citizenship and are committed to the state\u2019s principles.<\/p>\n While civic nationalists are less enthusiastic about remigration than ethnonationalists, to them, remigration means voluntary return migration. This could mean policies or incentives for immigrants to return to their country of origin if they choose, often for economic, family or cultural reasons.<\/p>\n Why is the idea of remigration becoming mainstream?<\/p>\n Beirich said that Sellner has been pushing this idea with far-right parties in Europe for the past two years.<\/p>\n \u201cThe astounding thing is not that a xenophobic political party like AfD in Germany would be open to this, but rather that a white supremacist policy position is now being pushed by the US government.\u201d<\/p>\n The AfD is a far-right party called Alternative for Germany, which is designated an \u201cextremist\u201d organisation<\/a> in the country.<\/p>\n In May 2025, Axios reported, quoting an unnamed State Department official, that the department is planning to create an \u201cOffice of Remigration\u201d.<\/p>\n Then, in an X post on October 14, the Department of Homeland Security wrote \u201cremigrate,\u201d adding a link to its mobile application, which allows US immigrants to self-deport.<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Where is the remigration movement picking up?<\/p>\n The idea of remigration has been revived by far-right leaders in Europe as well.<\/p>\n