Rubio’s secret antisemitic proposal for State

While America grapples with rising antisemitism, the Trump administration has weaponized concerns about rising antisemitism for its own authoritarian ends. It is now taking things a step further: The State Department’s proposed “Office of Remigration” represents one of the most dangerous developments of 2025, not just for immigrants, but for anyone who understands how antisemitic conspiracy theories fuel broader attacks on democracy.

If you have no idea what this office is, that’s by design. Despite its profound implications, the change has been largely ignored, only appearing in a few stories. Even its name is coded just enough to fly under the radar. But those of us who study antisemitism recognize the warning signs: far-right European terminology, explicit connections to white supremacist ideology, and the cynical manipulation of legitimate Jewish fears to advance ethnic cleansing.

A Policy Built on Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory

The proposed office would fundamentally restructure the current Refugee and Migration Bureau within the State Department, transforming it from a provider of humanitarian assistance to a coordinator of mass deportation. The Office of Remigration would serve as the hub for “immigration issues and repatriation tracking,” coordinating with DHS on removals and what the administration euphemistically calls “voluntary return of migrants to their country of origin.”

But this office isn’t just about immigration – it’s the policy arm for the Great Replacement Theory, the same antisemitic conspiracy that motivated the 2018 Pittsburgh synagogue massacre and other terrorist attacks against targeted communities, including immigrants in El Paso, Texas.

Great Replacement Theory claims that political and financial elites – by which people are often referring to overly influential Jews, an antisemitic trope – are orchestrating white demographic replacement through immigration, flooding the country with people from elsewhere to corrode and degrade the true (white) nation. “Remigration” is the proposed “solution” to this imaginary threat.

The term was deliberately chosen by European far-right movements as a euphemism for ethnic cleansing. Austrian activist Martin Sellner and other extremists picked “remigration” to replace historically tainted words like “deportation” while advancing the same goals. Now this dangerous language has entered official US government policy.

When government agencies adopt white supremacist terminology, they legitimize extremist language and concepts and create precedents for even worse measures. And as we have seen from the administration’s approach to deportations and legal status, the scope of “remigration” extends beyond undocumented immigrants to include lawful permanent residents and – likely at some point soon – naturalized or US-born citizens deemed insufficiently ‘assimilated.’

Project Esther’s Weaponization Playbook

All of this connects directly to Project Esther – a Heritage Foundation blueprint that exploits Jewish fears to advance authoritarian policies. Published without input from Jewish community leaders, it claims there’s a “highly organized, global Hamas Support Network” of activists and nonprofits, demonizes diversity initiatives as antisemitic threats, and dismisses the Biden administration’s comprehensive antisemitism strategy as “progressive left obsessions.” Most telling? It deliberately ignores right-wing antisemitism while redirecting attention toward civil society and Palestinian advocacy groups.

The administration is already implementing this blueprint. US Citizenship and Immigration Services now uses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, which includes examples that risk conflating antisemitism and anti-Zionism, to screen social media for deportation grounds, revoking over 500 student visas. As Project Esther recommended, the administration is using allegations of antisemitism as a reason to strip visas from legal residents who speak out on pro-Palestinian issues – but notably denies any connection between right-wing extremism and antisemitism. The Office of Remigration advances this strategy: Project Esther creates the framework for targeting communities; the Office provides the machinery for their removal.

A Dangerous Pattern

International trends where far-right parties have mainstreamed similar concepts present cause for concern, but the historical precedents are even more troubling. The Nazi regime began with policies of forced emigration and population management in the 1930s before escalating to genocide. Soviet deportations of “undesirable” populations, apartheid South Africa’s forced removals, and other authoritarian regimes have all used similar administrative structures, creating dedicated offices for population management that initially targeted specific groups before expanding their scope.

The proposed office would fundamentally transform the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration from humanitarian assistance to deportation coordination. Modern democracies don’t have dedicated offices devoted to coerced migration. Creating an office explicitly for “remigration” using far-right terminology represents a shift toward policies of mass deportation that could ultimately rise to being considered crimes against humanity should coercive violence escalate.

The Silence That Enables Extremism

Perhaps most troubling is how this has advanced with minimal scrutiny from both media and established institutions. Media Matters found that major newspapers failed to cover the announcement despite its significance. But it’s not just journalists – legacy Jewish organizations, which should be sounding the alarm about policies rooted in antisemitic conspiracy theories, have remained largely silent about the Office of Remigration’s connections to white supremacist ideology. This institutional silence creates space for dangerous policies to take root.

Time for Action

Congress, Jewish leaders, and communities across the country must reject the Office of Remigration and call it out for what it is: a new governmental office aiming to promote mass deportation rooted in white supremacist ideology. Every elected official who claims to oppose antisemitism should denounce this proposal – and refuse to fund the Office in this hideously warped form. There should be no debate about whether terminology borrowed from European neo-Nazis belongs in American government. Jewish institutions that have remained silent must find their voices now.

Congress must reject the creation of this office before July 1, or the language of ethnic cleansing will become the vocabulary of American governance.