Far-Right Leaders, Including Ex-CBP Chief Greg Bovino, Convene in Portugal for "Remigration Summit"

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AMY GOODMAN : This is Democracy Now! , democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report . I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

NERMEEN SHAIKH : In Portugal, hundreds of far-right activists gathered Saturday for the annual “Remigration Summit” advocating for the mass deportation of immigrants. Former U.S. Border Patrol Commander Gregory Bovino and white nationalist leader Jared Taylor were VIP guests alongside elected officials from Germany’s far-right, anti-immigrant AfD party and Spain’s Vox. Other attendees included Stefano Forte, president of the New York Young Republican Club.

In an interview ahead of the event, Greg Bovino cited Nazi Germany’s lead general, Erwin Rommel, as an inspirational figure. At the summit, Bovino said, quote, “If there is inspiration gained from the U.S. Border Patrol model and method, then fantastic.”

AMY GOODMAN : Gregory Bovino led the Trump administration’s militarized immigration crackdowns in Chicago, Los Angeles and Minneapolis. Earlier this year, he appeared in Minneapolis wearing a long olive wool overcoat that some online observers likened to, quote, “a Nazi cosplay coat.” California Governor Gavin Newsom’s social media press account called it “Nazi-coded.”

Bovino was eventually removed from his position in January after immigration agents under his command killed 37-year-old VA nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Pretti was shot dead two weeks after an ICE agent fatally shot Renee Good in Minneapolis.

During an interview outside the so-called Remigration Summit in Portugal, Bovino criticized the Trump administration.

GREGORY BOVINO : The base is not very happy now over what’s happening immigration-wise. They voted for mass deportations. Mass deportations are not occurring. There are no mass deportations occurring in the United States right now. So, those MAGA voters, those 80 million that came out to vote for him in the polls, are not happy campers right now.

AMY GOODMAN : We go now to Vienna, Austria, to speak with the reporter Charles Davis, who writes for The Guardian and also runs The Redoubt , where his new piece is headlined “Why did the press ignore a gathering of the world’s leading fascists?”

Charles, thanks so much for being with us. Why don’t you talk about what remigration is and the significance of Bovino being there?

CHARLES R. DAVIS : Yeah, so, remigration is basically the policy response to the “great replacement” conspiracy theory. And the great replacement conspiracy theory, as I think, unfortunately, a lot of your viewers will already know about, is the idea that there’s like a global elite plot, typically by Jews, to replace white Europeans and white North Americans with immigrants via mass migration. So, “remigration” was a term that was popularized a few years ago by an Austrian activist named Martin Sellner. He’s also the guy who helped popularize the great replacement conspiracy theory.

And it basically is — it’s an argument for mass deportations not just of illegal criminals, as is the typical rhetoric you would hear from the Trump administration and far-right parties here in Europe, but it’s the idea that we need to actually, like, reverse the 20th century, that the issue is not just the immigrants who came in the last few years seeking asylum or refugee status, but those who were allowed in over the last hundred years who were not really, as they see it, European or American.

NERMEEN SHAIKH : And, Charles, could you explain why — you mentioned earlier — why is this remigration idea attributed to Jews, this global plot?

CHARLES R. DAVIS : Well, actually, yeah, my original piece that I wrote last week, I spoke to a professor at the University of Vienna named Daniel Sharp, who explained that this is basically rooted in Nazi ideology. Like, the idea — specifically, let’s talk about Germany and Austria. The idea that certain people were not German and Austrian, despite the fact that they had lived in this area for hundreds of years, despite the fact that they had citizenship, that was very much the Nazi idea. And in fact, remigration back then, before it became the Holocaust, was the idea that we would expel Jews to places like Madagascar.

So, when it’s — when it’s popularized now, like, I mean, this is why it caused such a controversy a few years ago when Martin Sellner was meeting with members of Alternative für Deutschland. In 2023, the German outlet Correctiv reported that there was a secret meeting in Potsdam between Sellner and leaders of the AfD. And that caused national protests, because Germans know their history, right? They know what happens when you start saying certain Germans are more Germans than others.

And I think what is so alarming about this summit is that these people, including the AfD lawmakers that attended this, AfD lawmaker Lena Kotré and the AfD press that showed up to give her a platform, they’re now doing it out in the open. And I think that is maybe…