The Trump administration last week formally notified Congress of its plans for a sweeping reorganization of the State Department, which could include the establishment of an office focused on returning migrants living in the U.S. to their countries of origin. It is one of several overhauls spearheaded bySecretary of State Marco Rubioas he marches forward with a broad reorganization of the State Department, first announced in April. It would also include a cut to thousands of jobs, refocus the agency's human rights bureau on "Western values" and either restructure or eliminate 300 of the department's 734 bureaus and offices, according toReuters' review of the May 29 congressional notification. In astatementthe day of the notification's release to Congress, Rubio said the plan will result in a more "agile" State Department, which will scale back a department he said had grown in terms of bureaucracy and costs without delivering results. "The plan submitted to Congress was the result of thoughtful and deliberative work by senior department leadership," he said. "We have taken into account feedback from lawmakers, bureaus, and long-serving employees." Rubio didn't mention the Office of Remigration in his statement, and the office is not listed on a new chart on the department's website. However, reporting fromCNNandAxiossay there is a proposal within a more detailed notification for an "Office of Remigration," with both outlets independently reporting that it is described as a "hub for immigration issues and repatriation tracking." The proposed office would be one of three new "functional offices" formed from the existing Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, the outletsreported, all consolidated under a (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State) for Migration Matters. The three new offices are to "actively facilitate the voluntary return of migrants to their country of origin or legal status," according to the reporting. The proposed name draws on a term increasingly associated in Europe with the far-right and the rise in ethnonationalist immigration attitudes, especially in Germany and Austria, that calls for mass deportation of primarily non-white immigrants. It has become a shorthand to refer to policy proposals triumphed by some European right-wing parties, extremists and neo-Nazi activists that call for forceful mass deportation of migrants. It attracted buzz in 2023 after ajury of German linguistsnamed in "non-word" of the year in its annual ranking of misleading or inappropriate words that are used to discriminate or gloss over issues. While it has become a euphemism for forced repatriation in several Western and Central European countries, it is a largely unfamiliar term in the American political lexicon. In the final weeks of his 2024 presidential campaign, Trump used the term remigration in a post to the social media site X. "As President I will immediately end the migrant invasion of America. We will stop all migrant flights, end all illegal entries, terminate the Kamala phone app for smuggling illegals (CBP One App), revoke deportation immunity, suspend refugee resettlement, and return Kamala's illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration)," he said inthe post. Contributing: Reuters Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her atkapalmer@usatoday.comand on X @KathrynPlmr. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:What is the State Department's proposed 'Office of Remigration'?
