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Porto Remigration Summit
Hundreds of far-right activists gathered in Portugal on Saturday for the annual “Remigration Summit” advocating for the mass deportation of immigrants, with former U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino and white nationalist leader Jared Taylor listed as VIP guests alongside elected officials from Germany’s far-right anti-immigrant AfD party and Spain’s Vox.
“Hundreds of far-right activists gathered in Portugal on Saturday for the annual “Remigration Summit” advocating for the mass deportation of immigrants”
The event was held in Figueira da Foz, a coastal town 135 kilometers south of Porto, and it was co-organized by Austrian activist Martin Sellner, who helped popularize the term remigration.
In an interview ahead of the event, Bovino cited Nazi Germany’s lead general, Erwin Rommel, as an inspirational figure, and at the summit Bovino said, “If there is inspiration gained from the U.S. Border Patrol model and method, then fantastic.”
The summit’s presence of European far-right figures also included Stefano Forte, president of the New York Young Republican Club, as Democracy Now! described him among the attendees at the Portugal gathering.
Transatlantic Far-Right Links
WIRED described the Remigration Summit as a conference held south of Porto featuring European political leaders and hundreds of others to discuss remigration, and it said collaboration was “the name of the game” as Americans went to Europe to exchange information and make connections with far-right activists and political parties.
WIRED also reported that Bovino told it, “Over the past year, remigration did actually occur [in the US] … but [they] got a long way to go,” and it quoted him criticizing the leaders running deportation efforts, including secretary of homeland security Markwayne Mullin.
In Portugal, Ouest-France said the summit aims to influence political debates by pushing the migration question as a major theme, and it quoted Yves Léonard saying, “Everyone knows that it's another way of talking about mass deportation, but not using this term helps to better establish an idea, a climate.”
Euronews reported that two Vox leaders also took part in the Porto Remigration Summit, and it said Bovino was the surprise speaker at the event organized by the far-right movement Reconquista in Figueira da Foz on Saturday.
Who backs it, what it seeks
The Remigration Summit’s political backing and messaging were framed by The European Conservative as a “remigration” conference proposed by Jean-Yves Le Gallou in Paris in October, advocating the mass expulsion of migrants in France illegally, along with foreign criminals and welfare dependents.
“The far-right party, which is taking part this Saturday in Porto in a summit that defends a 'white' Europe, tightens links with activists who openly advocate racial theses”
Le Figaro said the Porto edition would take place this Saturday, May 30, and it described remigration as a concept defended by identitarian and radical nationalist movements that advocates the mass expulsion of foreigners in the name of preserving national and cultural identity.
Le Figaro further said the organizers define remigration on their website as a democratic, legal and long-term process (20 to 30 years) aimed at sending back illegal immigrants and harmful legal migrants and exerting pressure on unassimilated parallel societies.
In parallel, Global Project Against Hate and Extremism described the “Save Europe Act” as a European Citizens’ Initiative that, if it reaches one million EU-based signatures once formally submitted, would force the consideration of measures including “immediate return mechanisms” and “the systematic and accelerated return (remigration) of illegally staying migrants.”
