The State Department Really Doesn’t Want to Talk About the Office of Remigration

While Trump did not use the word again in the early days of his second term in office, in May 2025, a congressional notification from the State Department revealed that the Trump administration was planning to create an Office of Remigration within the department’s Bureau of Population, Migration, and Refugees.

The congressional notification said that the Office of Remigration would be initially staffed by personnel reassigned from the bureau’s Office of Western Hemisphere Affairs. “Those of us in the Office of Western Hemisphere didn’t know what that language meant for us, and despite all of our questions, our leadership would not or could not clarify that for us,” says the source, who worked in the State Department for years. “We didn’t know what was going to happen.”

The decision was praised by far right groups and leaders in the US and Europe. Martin Sellner, an Austrian activist and former member of a neo-Nazi group, told WIRED at the time that Trump’s policy “ticks many of the boxes” when asked if he believes remigration was already in action in the US.

In June and July, Trump mentioned the term remigration three times on his Truth Social platform, linking it to the work ICE was doing in relation to mass deportations. “It’s called “REMIGRATION” and, it will, MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN,” Trump wrote in a July 4 post on Truth Social.

Meanwhile, employees were apparently trying to get the new office name changed.

“Our office leadership told us they had asked to have this terminology changed many, many, many times, and that they were repeatedly told no,” says the source familiar with the office’s work. “At the time there was a thought of whether this a mistake, do they know what they’re talking about, do they even understand what remigration means. But clearly they did.”

By the end of 2025, staff began processing government-to-government payments for deals negotiated by the Trump administration. The money was meant to be used to ensure deportees were housed in conditions that meet basic humanitarian needs, but, according to the source, there was no oversight or transparency about how that money was used after it was sent.

While the Office of Remigration is not mentioned on the State Department’s website, a document published in January shed further light on the agency’s mission.

“Remigration and border security are central to our diplomatic engagements, especially to those in our hemisphere,” the State Department wrote in a strategic planning document published in January and covering 2026 to 2030. “That includes ensuring foreign countries facilitate the repatriation of their nationals who have no right to remain in the United States; negotiating arrangements with other countries to accept the transfer of asylum claimants and illegal aliens removed from American communities; and working with DHS to support voluntary remigration.”

In February, the Democrat minority on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee published a report that outlined the dramatic expansion of the use of third party deportations and their cost. “The total costs of the Trump Administration’s third country deportations through January 2026 are unknown but are likely upward of $40 million,” the report states. “Much of the funds were provided as lump sum payments, often before any third country nationals arrived.”