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PORTO, Portugal — European far-right activists advocating for the mass deportation of immigrants and their descendants are getting a boost from the Trump administration’s embrace of their key catchword: remigration.
Some 500 activists and influencers gathered south of Porto on Saturday to discuss the concept, once a fringe term only whispered in far-right circles. The United States’ former Border Patrol chief Gregory Bovino and American white nationalist Jared Taylor were VIP guests at the tightly controlled event that also included elected officials from Spain’s Vox and Germany’s Alternative for Germany (AfD).
Other leading European far-right parties, most prominently France’s National Rally, have avoided the term or rejected the policy as too extreme for targeting migrants based on their ethnicity or religion. But U.S. President Donald Trump’s use of the word and the American State Department’s pledge to create an office for remigration put wind in the sails of longtime advocates of the policy in Europe.
“When the word is acknowledged by the president of a major power … one can no longer say that it is marginal,” Jean-Yves Le Gallou, a former MEP for the French far right under Jean-Marie Le Pen, said at Saturday’s summit.
