New Trump Office Has Name Reportedly Linked to Racist Policy of the Far Right
The revamp is part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump to deport millions of undocumented migrants. According to a document sent by the State Department to six congressional committees and obtained by multiple news outlets, the new office would serve as a hub 'for immigration issues and repatriation tracking.'
The office would be part of the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration, a State Department official cited by Axios said.
The plan, sent for approval by July 1, has sparked alarm as the term 'remigration' has become a buzzword for the global far right. In Europe, the ideology calls for the expulsion or forced repatriation of non-white immigrants and their descendants, regardless of their legal status. It has been used by far-right parties such as Austria's Freedom party (FPÖ) which in June 2024 urged the EU to name a 'remigration commissioner.'
'The Office of Remigration will serve as the [Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration]'s hub for immigration issues and repatriation tracking,' the document said. 'It will provide a policy platform for interagency coordination with DHS and other agencies on removals/repatriations, and for intra-agency policy work to advance the President's immigration agenda.'
In a nod to remigration ideology, the Office of Remigration 'will also actively facilitate the voluntary return of migrants to their country of origin or legal status,' Wired reported.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the State Department for comment.
Wendy Via, CEO and president of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, described the plans as 'outrageous.'
'There is no hiding from the fact that the ultimate goal of 'remigration' is purely about ethnic cleansing. It is a terrible day for our country when 'remigration' proponents are crediting the US and Trump's administration for normalizing the term,' she told Wired.
Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow with the American Immigration Council, said on X: 'In a move likely intended to cause public outrage, Sec. Rubio is proposing eliminating the refugee and migration division at the State Department and replacing it with an 'Office of Remigration' — a term closely associated with the European far right and ethnic cleansing.'
'The way that it worked before, Population Refugee Migration was basically an entire bureau dedicated to bringing people into the United States,' a State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Axios.
'It had the migration function—it's in the name—we're just reversing the flow of migrants who shouldn't be here to go out of the country.'
The development comes weeks after DHS data revealed that Trump—despite his fiery anti-immigrant rhetoric—is actually deporting people at a slower pace than his predecessor Joe Biden. According to Reuters, the Trump administration deported 37,660 people in its first month in office. That's below the monthly average of 57,000 removals and returns during Biden's final year as president.
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Los Angeles Times
3 minutes ago
- Los Angeles Times
International charities and NGOs call for end to controversial Israeli-backed aid group in Gaza
CAIRO — Dozens of international charities and non-governmental organizations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty, called Tuesday for an Israeli and U.S.-backed aid mechanism for Gaza to disband over repeated incidents of chaos and deadly violence against Palestinians heading toward its sites. At least seven Palestinians were killed seeking aid in southern and central Gaza between late Monday and early Tuesday. The deaths came after Israeli forces killed at least 74 people in Gaza earlier Monday with airstrikes that left 30 dead at a seaside cafe and gunfire that left 23 dead as Palestinians tried to get desperately needed food aid, witnesses and health officials said. Next week, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will travel to Washington to meet President Trump and other administration officials. Netanyahu's visit comes as Trump has signaled he is ready for Israel and Hamas to wind down the war in Gaza, which is likely to be a focus of their talks. The war has killed over 56,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says more than half of the dead were women and children. The health ministry on Tuesday afternoon said the bodies of 116 people killed by Israeli strikes had been brought to hospitals in Gaza over the past 24 hours. The Hamas attack in October 2023 that sparked the war killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and took 251 others hostage. Some 50 hostages remain, many of them thought to be dead. More than 165 major international charities and non-governmental organizations, including Oxfam, Save the Children and Amnesty, on Tuesday called for an immediate end to the Gaza Humanitarian Fund. 'Palestinians in Gaza face an impossible choice: starve or risk being shot while trying desperately to reach food to feed their families,' the group said in a joint news release. The call by the charities and NGOs was the latest sign of trouble for the Gaza Humanitarian Fund, a secretive U.S. and Israeli-backed initiative headed by an evangelical leader who is a close ally of Trump. The Gaza Humanitarian Fund started distributing aid on May 26, following a nearly three-month Israeli blockade that has pushed Gaza's population of more than 2 million people to the brink of famine. In a statement Tuesday, the organization said it has delivered more than 52 million meals over five weeks. 'Instead of bickering and throwing insults from the sidelines, we would welcome other humanitarian groups to join us and feed the people in Gaza,' the statement said. 'We are ready to collaborate and help them get their aid to people in need. At the end of the day, the Palestinian people need to be fed.' Last month, the organization said there has been no violence in or around its distribution centers and that its personnel have not opened fire. Israel's foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment Tuesday. According to Gaza's Health Ministry, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed around the chaotic and controversial aid distribution program over the past month. Palestinians are often forced to travel long distances to access Gaza Humanitarian Fund hubs in hopes of obtaining aid. The humanitarian fund is the linchpin of a new aid system that wrested distribution away from aid groups led by the U.N. The new mechanism limits food distribution to a small number of hubs under guard of armed contractors, where people must go to pick it up. Currently four hubs are set up, all close to Israeli military positions. Israel had demanded an alternative plan because it accuses Hamas of siphoning off aid. The United Nations and aid groups deny there is significant diversion. They reject the new mechanism, saying it allows Israel to use food as a weapon, violates humanitarian principles and won't be effective. The Israeli military said it had recently taken steps to improve organization in the area. Israel says it only targets militants and blames civilian deaths on Hamas, accusing the militants of hiding among civilians because they operate in populated areas. At least seven Palestinians were killed late Monday and early Tuesday in three separate locations while seeking aid, hospitals said. Three of the deaths by Israeli fire occurred in Gaza's southern city of Khan Yunis, while four were killed in central Gaza. More than 65 others were wounded, according to the Awda hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp, and the Al-Quds hospital in Gaza City, which received the casualties. The casualties were among thousands of starved Palestinians who gather at night to take aid from passing trucks in the area of the Netzarim route in central Gaza. Meanwhile, an 11-year-old girl was killed Tuesday when an Israeli strike hit her family's tent west of Khan Yunis, according to the Kuwait field hospital that received her body. And the U.N. Palestinian aid agency said Israel's military struck one of its schools sheltering displaced people in Gaza City on Monday. The strike left no casualties but caused significant damage to the facility, UNRWA said. Speaking to a meeting of his Cabinet on Tuesday, Netanyahu did not elaborate on the contents of his upcoming Washington visit, except to say he will discuss a trade deal. Iran, following the 12-day war with Israel, is also expected to be a main topic of discussion. After brokering a ceasefire between Iran and Israel, Trump has signaled that he's turning his attention to bringing a close to the fighting between Israel and Hamas. The Palestinian Health Ministry in the occupied West Bank said Israeli forces killed two Palestinians in the territory, including a 15-year-old, in two separate incidents. The Israeli military had no immediate comment on the teen's shooting. In the second incident, it said a 'suspicious individual' was seen trying to cross into Israel from the southern West Bank, prompting soldiers to open fire. The Shifa hospital in Gaza City suspended services at the dialysis unit amid a shortage of fuel required to operate power generators, the Health Ministry announced on Tuesday. The unit provides treatment to dozens of kidney failure patients in northern Gaza. It called for international agencies to press Israel to quickly allow the delivery of fuel to Shifa and other overwhelmed hospitals across Gaza. 'The continued lack of fuel means the inevitable death of all patients and wounded in hospitals,' it said. Mourners held Muslim funeral prayers Tuesday for seven people from the same family who were killed in an airstrike the previous day in central Gaza. The strike hit a family house in the central town of Zawaida late Monday, killing two parents, two siblings and three grandchildren, according to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in the nearby town of Deir al-Balah, which received the casualties. Magdy writes for the Associated Press. Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem contributed to this report.
The Hill
3 minutes ago
- The Hill
Senate megabill marks biggest Medicaid cuts in history
Senate Republicans on Tuesday passed the largest cuts to Medicaid since the program began in the 1960s, a move that would erode the social safety net and cause a spike in the number of uninsured Americans over the next decade. The tax and spending bill is projected to cost more than $3 trillion during that time, but would be partially paid for with about $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid. Almost 12 million lower-income Americans would lose their health insurance by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office. It still needs to pass the House again, where some moderate Republicans have expressed concerns about the cuts. The CBO was still analyzing the bill after it was released late Friday, and many last-minute changes meant a more exact forecast on coverage losses wasn't possible before the Senate rushed to vote on it. President Trump and most congressional Republicans say the reductions aren't true cuts. They argue nobody who should be on Medicaid will lose benefits. 'We're cutting $1.7 trillion in this bill, and you're not going to feel any of it,' President Trump said at the White House last week. Still, experts and health advocates say the CBO analysis confirms that despite Trump's repeated pledges to only cut waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid, the legislation would enact an unprecedented reduction in the program currently used by more than 70 million low-income Americans. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) made an impassioned speech on the Senate floor Sunday night warning that Trump was breaking his promise not to cut Medicaid. 'The people in the White House advising the president, they're not telling him that the effect of this bill is to break a promise,' Tillis said the day after announcing he would not seek re-election. 'I'm telling the president, you have been misinformed. You supporting the Senate mark will hurt people who are eligible and qualified for Medicaid.' Over time, the losses will blunt the significant coverage gains made under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), signed by then-President Obama in 2010. 'This bill isn't being crafted to improve health care in America, or to improve the Medicaid program, or to improve the [ACA]. The purpose of these cuts in the bill is to try to find savings to pay for tax cuts,' said Andrea Ducas, vice president of health policy at the Democratic-aligned Center for American Progress. 'It's treating these health care programs as a [piggy bank]. It's just, how do we extract as much from these programs as humanly possible so that we can find the savings to pay for tax cuts,' Ducas said. The effects of the cut could be devastating, beyond coverage losses. People who lose their Medicaid would have to pay more out of pocket, driving up medical debt and leading to them likely delaying needed treatment or medication. Hospitals would see a spike in uncompensated care and overcrowding of emergency rooms. Even people who still have insurance may not have anywhere to go for care. Hospitals, nursing homes and other providers operating on thin margins warn they could close. 'Seniors will struggle to afford long-term care. People with disabilities will lose critical healthcare coverage that allows them to work and live independently. Rural communities across America will be decimated from hospital closures, and people will lose their lives,' Richard Besser, president and CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said in a statement. 'It is unfathomable to see policymakers intentionally inflict so much damage on the people they represent.' Experts said it's nearly impossible to take almost $1 trillion out of Medicaid without impacting the entire health system, not just the people who lose insurance. By design, the group that would be hit the hardest are people who gained insurance when their states expanded Medicaid under ObamaCare. 'The bill particularly attempts to undermine the Medicaid expansion,' said Jennifer Tolbert, deputy director of the program on Medicaid and the Uninsured at health policy research organization KFF. 'It doesn't exactly repeal it, but many of the provisions target both expansion states and the expansion population.' The bill would achieve its savings in various ways, but the bulk of the cuts come from a strict national work requirement and new restrictions on state-levied taxes on health providers. The provider taxes were the second-largest Medicaid cut in the House bill, after the work requirements. The cuts are even larger under the Senate design. Those changes would reduce spending by nearly $191 billion over a decade, according to the CBO estimate. States impose taxes on providers to boost their federal Medicaid contributions, which they then redirect to hospitals in the form of higher reimbursements. Limiting provider taxes is a long-held conservative goal, as they argue states are gaming the current system and driving up federal Medicaid spending. But senators representing states with poorer, rural populations have objected to the scale of the provider tax cuts, including Sens. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Tillis. The House bill would freeze the tax rate for most states, but the Senate version would require many states to lower their existing rates. As an incentive for senators uncomfortable with the provision, the bill includes a $25 billion fund to aid rural hospitals. Overnight Monday, senators voted down an amendment from Collins to double the size of the fund and increase taxes on the ultra-wealthy. Hospitals said the relief fund isn't enough to make up for the impacts of the bill, and urged lawmakers to reject it in favor of the House version — which also would have enacted unprecedented Medicaid cuts, but was less damaging to rural providers. Even some Republicans sounded the alarm. Tillis focused his ire on the provider taxes and state-directed payments, arguing they were simply too harmful to his constituents. He warned his fellow Republicans that their support for the bill could boomerang and cost them politically. Hawley condemned the provider tax cuts and other Medicaid changes, but voted for the bill anyway. Part of his reasoning, he said, was that the bill was changed to delay implementation of the cuts for another year. He also touted 'tax cuts for working families' and an extension of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA). Hawley in a statement after the vote urged the House to pass the bill quickly, while sounding a warning on Medicaid. 'Let me be clear, I will continue to do everything in my power to reverse future cuts to Medicaid. If Republicans want to be the party of the working class, we cannot cut health isnurance for working people.' The other major Medicaid change in the bill is work requirements. For the first time in the history of the Medicaid program, the bill would require beneficiaries to prove they are working or in school at least 80 hours a month to keep their health insurance starting December 31, 2026. The Senate version extends the requirement to low-income parents of children older than 14, in addition to childless adults without disabilities. States can apply for a 'good faith' exemption to delay the start until 2029, but it's up to the discretion of the Trump administration to grant it. Advocates said giving the administration power to delay coverage losses has the potential to politicize the work requirements, as the White House could grant waivers to important states Republicans need to win. The work requirements are projected to save about $325 billion over a decade, because millions of people would be moved off Medicaid rolls. Nearly six million people would eventually lose Medicaid for not meeting the House bill's work requirements, according to CBO. Work requirements 'are only money savers if people lose coverage. Otherwise they wouldn't be in this bill,' Ducas said. 'I think that's pretty clearly the intent.'
Fox News
4 minutes ago
- Fox News
Mike Johnson readies House vote on Trump's 'big, beautiful bill' amid warring GOP factions
The House of Representatives is expected to take up the Senate's modified version of President Donald Trump's "big, beautiful bill" this week. The Senate passed the bill after a marathon weekend session, which included Democrats forcing a read-through of the entire 940-page text. Vice President JD Vance cast the tie-breaking vote. The bill first passed the House in late May by just one vote – and Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., will have a margin of just three Republicans to advance it again. Both moderate and conservative House Republicans still had various concerns about the bill as of the weekend, but it's not immediately clear if it will be enough to force GOP leaders to pause their ambitious timeline of getting the bill to the president's desk by Fourth of July. "The House will work quickly to pass the One Big Beautiful Bill that enacts President Trump's full America First agenda by the Fourth of July. The American people gave us a clear mandate, and after four years of Democrat failure, we intend to deliver without delay," House GOP leaders said ina joint statement. "This bill is President Trump's agenda, and we are making it law. House Republicans are ready to finish the job and put the One Big Beautiful Bill on President Trump's desk in time for Independence Day." House GOP leadership held a brief call with lawmakers on Saturday to discuss their expectations on the timing of the bill, while also urging them to air concerns about the bill with their Senate counterparts directly – rather than on social media. Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., said lawmakers would be asked to return with 48 hours' notice, noting that Tuesday or Wednesday looked more likely than a Monday callback, Fox News Digital was told. That was when the Senate was expected to begin considering the bill with a vote on whether to proceed with the debate set for 4 p.m. ET, however. The chamber began the vote at 7:31 p.m. ET and passed it just after 11 p.m. Since then, House leaders have signaled to lawmakers that votes could begin as early as 9 a.m. on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., and his team began taking temperatures in the House GOP conference remotely on Sunday, even as the Senate still considered the bill. "We want to get on this as soon as possible, so be prepared," Emmer told lawmakers, Fox News Digital was told. But a source familiar with whip team operations told Fox News Digital on Sunday that conservative fiscal hawks had concerns about the Senate's version of the bill, particularly after the parliamentarian said key provisions must be stripped out. Republicans are using the budget reconciliation process to fast-track a massive bill advancing Trump's agenda on taxes, the border, defense, energy and the national debt. Budget reconciliation allows the party in power to sideline opposition – in this case, Democrats – by lowering the Senate's threshold for passage from 60 votes to 51. But the legislation must adhere to certain guidelines, including only adding measures that deal with the federal budget or national debt. The parliamentarian is a non-partisan, unelected Senate staffer who helps guide the chamber through its complex procedures. The parliamentarian is chosen by the Senate majority leader, without term limits, and is typically selected from someone already working in the parliamentarian's office due to their deep knowledge of its mechanisms. Measures deemed non-germane to the final bill included a provision banning Medicaid funding from covering transgender medical services and a measure aimed at slashing funding to states that allow illegal immigrants to use Medicaid services. But the Senate made its own changes to the House bill even without the parliamentarian's input; the Senate added a $25 billion rural hospital fund to offset concerns from Senate Republicans about Medicaid cuts still in the bill. A provision was also added late Saturday morning that raised tax deductions for whale hunters, an apparent bid to court Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, who had various concerns about the bill. The Senate bill would also increase the debt limit by $5 trillion, compared to the House bill's $4 trillion. The U.S. debt is currently over $36 trillion. House Freedom Caucus Policy Chair Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, wrote a lengthy post on X listing his issues with the bill. "The Senate BBB has a deficit problem. 1) CBO shows the Senate bill misses the House framework by $651 billion EXCLUDING interest. Even adjusted for dynamic growth revenues - interest in light of front-loaded cost vs. backloaded savings lifts cost to $1.3 Trillion," he began. Among his other issues were the debt limit increase and the added benefit aimed at Alaska. "There remain numerous substantive problems - from illegals on benefits to funding sex change operations, no REINS Act regulatory relied," he posted. Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., said on "Fox Report" on Sunday, "If it does pass to Senate and come over with those significant changes, it changes the framework that we agreed upon in the House from a spending perspective." "When you do that, there are a lot of us that are going to have pause because we're not cutting as much spending as we wanted to cut previously because of decisions that the parliamentarian has made. So it's going be challenging," Steube said. Meanwhile, multiple House GOP moderates are threatening to vote "no" over Medicaid cuts – specifically, changes that would shift a greater cost burden onto states that expanded their Medicaid populations under Obamacare. A source close to Rep. Young Kim, R-Calif., told Fox News Digital that she would vote against the bill if the Senate did not adhere to the House's Medicaid language on Saturday. Rep. David Valadao, R-Calif., said in a public written statement, "I've been clear from the start that I will not support a final reconciliation bill that makes harmful cuts to Medicaid, puts critical funding at risk, or threatens the stability of healthcare providers across [California's 22nd Congressional district]." "I urge my Senate colleagues to stick to the Medicaid provisions in H.R.1 – otherwise, I will vote no," Valadao wrote. On the lawmaker-only call Saturday, both Johnson and Scalise urged Republicans to keep their negotiations and concerns about the bill private. "They're not going to be reading your social media, so putting it there doesn't help. You need to reach out to them directly, they're in the thick of it," Johnson said, Fox News Digital was told.
