On April 18 in Milan, the Italian party League rallied alongside Patriots for Europe, a European Parliament movement of right-wing and nationalist parties. For a moment, the rally revolved around a word it could not sustain: "remigration."
The term is used by the European far right to frame the return of migrants, often extending beyond voluntary repatriation to encompass coercive removal by national governments.
The episode points to a familiar pattern. In Italy, as elsewhere in Europe, a word once confined to the margins is entering mainstream political debate, yet remains difficult to withstand once exposed to wider scrutiny.
This is not surprising: remigration works rhetorically because it resists clear definition.
But this is also why its political application proves difficult to maintain. For liberal parties, this creates a strategic advantage: pressing for a precise definition would lay bare the inconsistency of far-right proposals on immigration.
Exposing fragmentation on the far right
Across Europe, remigration has moved into party programs and campaign rhetoric without an apparent electoral cost.
In Germany, the Alternative for Germany has incorporated it into its platform while expanding its electoral base. The same pattern is evident in Austria, where the Freedom Party has adopted remigration in its manifesto and emerged as the largest party.
In Italy, the term is newer but already capable of mobilizing support. The far-right campaign group Remigration and Reconquest has collected nearly 150,000 signatures for a proposal advocating mass deportations and denaturalization.
U.S. President Donald Trump has incorporated the concept into the Make America Great Again agenda, invoking remigration and placing it at the center of an anti-immigration agenda built around mass deportations.
Remigration is framed as a unifying project for a fragmented right. Yet its trajectory suggests the opposite.
As the concept moves from slogan to substance, it reveals divisions over scope, feasibility and legal limits — from voluntary return schemes to large-scale deportations and denaturalization.
This tension is rooted in the concept's evolution. It originally referred to the voluntary return of migrants. In the 1990s, the French far right recast it as a political slogan: "When we arrive, they will leave."
When it moved into party politics, it gained prominence in Austria and Germany. In 2023, meetings involving AfD figures pushed it into the center of public debate, where it became associated with proposals for large-scale expulsions, including individuals deemed "unassimilated."
The move into mainstream politics forces the concept into precise definition, creating risks its proponents often seek to avoid.
In Milan, the League's retreat from the term has accentuated divisions within the broader Italian right-wing coalition. In Germany, AfD has similarly recalibrated its use of remigration following revelations of meetings involving activist Martin Sellner, narrowing its interpretation in response to legal and political pressure.
Courts and domestic intelligence services have signaled that expansive interpretations — particularly those involving collective expulsions or differential treatment of citizens — conflict with constitutional principles.
The limits of remigration
Remigration is less a viable policy than a fragile political instrument, with its appeal rooted in deliberate vagueness.
That fragility creates a strategic opening. If remigration cannot be fully articulated without political cost, imposing clarity becomes a way to intensify those tensions.
The challenge for liberal actors is not only to oppose the concept, but to define it — both legally and politically — and hold its proponents to that standard. The more explicit the proposals, the harder they are to sustain within broad coalitions.
A concept that cannot be clearly specified without undermining itself may travel far in political rhetoric, but falters once subjected to scrutiny.
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