Tom Nuttall, Berlin bureau chief
Watching the founding event for the youth branch of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party last year, I was struck by a repeated refrain from the stage. “Only mass remigration will
protect our women and children,” declared one newly elected board member.
Another speaker called for “remigration on a massive scale”. Every use of this
term earned thunderous applause… “Remigration” was a word once considered beyond
the pale even for the populist nationalists of the AfD. Its journey to something
closer to the mainstream is in large part the work of one man: Martin Sellner, a
37-year-old far-right Austrian activist and the author of “Remigration: A
Proposal”, which briefly hit the bestseller charts in Germany in 2024. Mr
Sellner divides immigrants into three groups he wants subject to remigration, by
which he may mean anything from forced expulsion to encouraging immigrants to
self-deport: illegal immigrants; the legal sort; and finally, naturalised but
“unassimilated” citizens. Over decades, Mr Sellner suggests, remigration can
arrest the “great replacement” of majorities and safeguard Europe’s ethnic
identity. “Three steps forward, two steps back, until these terms have gone from
unthinkably radical...to popular,” he once said. To judge by the increasing
prominence of the term, Mr Sellner has reason to be satisfied with his progress.
Last week a far-right group sparked uproar in Italy’s parliament with a petition
calling for a remigration law.
In 2024 Donald Trump thrilled Mr Sellner’s acolytes by pointedly using the
word himself. But most importantly, Mr Sellner appears to have the ear of many inside the
AfD, a radical party that leads some German opinion polls—and has a shot at
taking power in two eastern states later this year.
It’s a shame the US has so many xenophobic white people. We could take them all here. We don’t really have a culture that can be disturbed or threatened. And a larger population would help us compete with China and India. Moral considerations aside, Europe is 500M packed in a small place. They will have a hard time and especially now that their economies are drooping. I know this is a pipe dream because the US is not a welcoming place, it’s still a white place. And absorbing them would require a plan and we don’t really plan here. As populations move away from the equator due to climate change, they’ll have to go northward or die. Well, their dying might actually be the plan.
ReplyDelete"Remigration" just sounds like a not too subtle euphemism for ethnic cleansing. I hope the idea doesn't gain traction in Europe, but it seems like fascism and related concepts make the rounds like a bad virus every so often.
ReplyDeleteWonder if Pope Leo has said anything about remigration yet.
Is it pronounced as "re-migration"? Or "rem-igration" (rhymes with "emigration")?
ReplyDeleteRegardless of what they call it in Europe, what is discussed in this post is pretty much what Stephen Miller is pulling the Donald Trump marionette strings to implement here.
In the US, I think the popular perception of immigration policy choices is: "admit everyone" (Democrats) vs. "admit no one and deport everyone" (Republicans).
ReplyDeleteOf course, a whole continuum of alternative policy choices exist between those two poles, but none of them are able to find oxygen in today's political environment. Among those alternatives are what the Catholic church would offer as guidance: nations have the right and duty to control and defend their borders; but a preferential option should be given to refugees and asylum-seekers; and we should be generous in welcoming immigrants. This balanced outlook is ill-suited for today's landscape of politics, social media and left/right-wing legacy media.
And yet if we don't find some kind of a balanced policy, we're never going to get out of the present dysfunctional loop. Sen. Ruben Gallegos of Arizona has put forth what he calls a "five pillared plan". I don't know all the particulars, but at least it seems to be a serious effort to engage with the issues.
DeleteTrying to find a sensible middle ground is like trying to get Russia and Ukraine to agree to peace: one side doesn't want a peace treaty because it thinks it's winning, and the other side doesn't want a peace treaty because it doesn't want to lose.
DeleteUnless one wants to have a relatively unhuman world shape around robots, and AI, then immigration is necessary to offset the increasingly elderly populations of the most advanced economies.
ReplyDeleteThe US with its land, economic and educational resources is well positioned to integrate immigrants into our economy. I think that we need to do that in all parts of the labor force.
For example, the housing construction industry has replaced a union labor force with an immigrant labor force. Deportation of immigrants threatens our ability to build more housing. We need a housing construction labor force that recruits both current citizens and immigrants giving them the education that used to be provided by trade union apprenticeships.
The model would be more like our health care professionals model which credentials people for doing various tasks so the employers know they are qualified, and the workers have some standard for employment. Built into this system would be requirements workers can communicate in English, use computers, read blueprints, etc.
DeleteMore labor is needed as the population ages, but the PTB want to ” solve” this problem by trying to talk people ( especially white people)into having a lot more children rather than allow the 11 million immigrants they plan to deport to stay. And few women are going to have more kids just because Elon Musk has 14 and the dutiful wives of Vance and Miller are expecting a fourth child. It won’t work. One thousand $ baby bonus accounts aren’t going to convince many women that they should stay home, barefoot and pregnant.
DeleteImmigration may be the only option at some point. AI might be able to design buildings, but probably can’t build them. Robots that sophisticated aren’t going to happen soon.
One thing the Chinese experience has taught us is that government has little control over how many children people have. They first had a 'one child' policy which was a disaster that got them into present nightmare where one child has to support both parent and grandparent. Now after failing to limit children, they have not found a way to get people to have enough children to support their parents.
DeleteOur present economic and political chaos is a very unfavorable time for having children unless you are super wealthy. We are going to need immigrants to support our economy. The only question remains is how to devise the best immigration policy.
Most immigrants are net contributors to economic growth (and benefit the country in any other ways). Trump's million-a-year deportation policy is one of a string of economically harmful policies he's promulgated. And voters are noticing.
DeleteI don't think it's in Trump's character to help foster the kind of culture that might lead to a higher birth rate. My supposition is, couples are more likely to have children if they feel optimistic and confident about the future. But Trump thrives on pessimism and conflict.
Delete"...couples are more likely to have children if they feel optimistic and confident about the future." Jim, I think you nailed it there. I can speak from experience. The time period where we would have had any additional kids was the 1980s. Our lives were definitely not economically stable then. There were two moves between states, and three job changes for my husband. None of this would have been our choice except for necessity. We got a taste of what I am afraid is going to happen now with AI, the downsizing of white collar jobs in the wake of corporate mergers. I realized that in order for us to have any stability, I was going to need to complete a degree and work full time. We weren't insane enough to try and get pregnant on purpose.
DeleteMaybe they are counting on the millions of MAGA women who are “ trad” wives to come through to replace all those kids with brown skin that they are deporting.
DeleteKatherine is probably right that AI may displace a lot of white collar workers. Tech killed a whole lot of manufacturing jobs.
Immigrants fill most jobs in assisted living, nursing homes and home health agencies. As the boomers continue aging it’s going to be tougher and tougher to fill those jobs and I do t think robots will do the truck - speaking as someone who has employed home caregivers. For more than two years and lived in assisted living for 3 months. Every single caregiver except one has been an immigrant. Most CNAs these days in hospitals are also immigrants as are many nurses. Many RNs in hospitals these days are male - RN salaries have been going up in recent years due to shortages, so appear to be attracting more men than years ago. These shortages are only going to get dramatically worse by barring immigration. Construction, hospitality ( restaurants, fast food, hotels etc) and healthcare will suffer dramatically if trump really does deport 12 million. For his own businesses ( golf courses, resorts, and vineyard in Virginia), he abuses the seasonal visa option even though a lot of farmers and other resort operators can’t get them.
"Maybe they are counting on the millions of MAGA women who are “ trad” wives"
DeleteAre there really millions of them? I'm skeptical. Maybe my opinion of MAGA men is too low; I find it difficult to understand how women would put up with them!
Yes, I don't know that there are huge numbers of "trad wives". I think it is mainly an online phenomenon, women posting pictures and videos of homemade bread and spotless rooms, and themselves with hair done to perfection, wearing chic clothes. I can think of my days as a SAH mom of preschoolers, it certainly didn't look like that!
DeleteWell, who knows how many are “ perfect” trad wives. Around 70 million people voted for trump. For simplicity’s sake, let’s assume half were women, although I’ve read that fewer women than men vote MAGA. But millions of women. A significant number of these voters are evangelicals - and Catholics. Both are subject to church teachings that males are to be the dominant partner in marriages - women are to be subordinate to men. Usha Vance said after her third child that her family was complete. But then her husband caught the pro- natalist kick and apparently persuaded her to have another child. Her duty. Stephen Millers wife is now expecting #4. I am wondering if there will be a baby boom of evangelical MAGA babies. And Catholic MAGA babies - something the church has pushed for decades.MAGA babies in general.
DeleteThey don’t say it out loud - yet - but (with the exception of people of high caste Indian heritage like Usha Vance, Nikki Haley, Patel etc) this push, taking place while trying to remove 11 million brown skinned immigrants from the country may have its roots in the fears underlying the remigration movement and great replacement theories. They fear white replacement and the end of white dominance in the western nations.
The cuts in federal assistance programs impact more MAGA families in red states than those in blue states. Perhaps that will offset a MAGA baby boom because, as you point out, many can’t afford more kids.
We are able to sustain or less than sustain our earth population of 8B. The overall population we have today is an overshoot based on fossil fuels which provide energy for mechanization and fertilizer. Whether birthed domestically or imported, population growth tends toward the exponential and the earth is finite. At this or some lower population level, a steady state population has to be attained, or a big population crash is in the offing. With the environmental load and climate change, some already see this as inevitable. If economies have to keep growing to survive, it IS inevitable.
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