Talk:Remigration/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Hatnote

The hatnote is helpful: “This article is about the political promotion of coerced or forced deportation. For the social science concept, see Return migration.” However, this leaves out that the word “remigration” is used for the target article. In other words, people who come to this article, who are specifically interested in the social science concept called “remigration”, will not necessarily understand if it’s covered in this article or the other one. Another issue is that a large majority of people in many countries support involuntary return of people who have not immigrated lawfully, so does the scope of the present article include those majorities, and label them as "far-right"? A third issue with the hatnote is that it's unclear why the present article is not about a social science concept; the article on return migration says it's about both voluntary and involuntary return, and this article is presumably a subset of that one.

There are several ways to deal with all this. For example:
(1) We could use a piped link in the hatnote, like “Remigration (voluntary or not)”; or
(2) We could set up a redirect and link to it without piping; or
(3) We could rephrase the hatnote for clarity, to say something like, “This article is about involuntary return of people, who immigrated legally, to their countries of origin or ancestry. For return regardless of voluntariness or legality, see Return migration, sometimes called remigration.”
My preference is #3. Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:21, 15 June 2026 (UTC)

Some of the examples in this article seem to be about politicians talking about illegal immigrants, so I'm not sure your phrasing in #3 is accurate. I've updated the hatnote to say: This article is about the political promotion of coerced or forced deportation. For the more general social science concept that is sometimes called "remigration", see Return migration. Hopefully that helps a little? Cadddr (talk) 15:10, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

I like that. Simonm223 (talk) 15:11, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

That's a little better. But I would still like to know if the scope of this article includes political promotion of coerced or forced deportation of people who immigrated unlawfully. Because then a fairly large percentage of people in the U.S., for example, would be covered by this article. Between 40% and 60% depending on how the question is asked. Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:48, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Unfortunately the answer is that these things exist on a spectrum. It's easy to say a person who, for example, deploys the slogan "no person is illegal" or "borders are made up" opposes remigration. It's also easy to say that a person who seeks to end birthright citizenship and deport people on the basis of skin colour unambiguously support remigration. For those 40-58% of US citizens polled in this article who, depending on how the question is framed, support the deportation of immigrants classified as illegal. I mean... Kind of yes, kind of no. There are probably many within that group who would be morally incensed at the idea of remigration (likely including the entirety of the 18% who changed answer depending on question framing) and who would not see their support for deportation of "illegal" immigrants as being the same thing. And there are probably also people within the 40% who did not change their answers who would have no problem with ending birthright citizenship. The problem here is that the forced deportation of "illegal immigrants" is a related and overlapping phenomenon with forced remigration. You're asking for us to square a circle here but I think the truth (as supported by reliable sources) is that it's more of a Venn diagram. Simonm223 (talk) 18:55, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Well, we seem to be currently implying that 40% to 60% of the U.S. population favors "a far-right concept referring to ... ethnic cleansing," If that's not what is intended, then the opening paragraph ought to be clarified accordingly. Anythingyouwant (talk) 18:58, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Again, I'm sorry that this article cannot give you the clarity you want about 40-60% of Americans but the problem is not the opening paragraph - the problem is the vagueness of how public opinion polls captured their opinions and the dubiousness of the category of "illegal immigration" within sociological and geographical academic literature. This is a domain issue to a certain extent. I suspect Average American Survey Respondent is not reading journals on regular and irregular human migration patterns. But those of us who edit these sorts of articles are. Simonm223 (talk) 19:00, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Also, just to note, the phrase Mass deportation is a specific one that is likely differentiated from what non-racist survey respondents intend and expect when it comes to deporting irregular migrants. Simonm223 (talk) 19:02, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

It would seem quite simple and straightforward to say in the opening paragraph whether deportation of immigrants is included in the article scope if they immigrated unlawfully. Or does it depend on the motivations of those who support deporting them? I think this article would be a lot more focused and useful if it would only discuss the far-right supporters of deporting even people who have immigrated legally. Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:06, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

As I've tried to explain above, you're asking for too narrow a box for a rhetorical territory that has permeable boundaries. The answer is sometimes yes, sometimes no. Simonm223 (talk) 19:09, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

Okay, if that's how the article should be, then let's clarify up front that not everyone who supports enforcement of immigration laws is included in the article scope, because there are many motivations besides ethnic cleansing for supporting enforcement of immigration laws. Incidentally, such reasons include a belief that a country would be overwhelemed if borders were opened, a belief that too much immigration can lead to non-assimilation, stuff like that. If this article is not intended to paint 40 to 60% of American as far-right racists, then it would be quite easy to remove that implication. Anythingyouwant (talk) 19:15, 17 June 2026 (UTC)

• My suggestion per the discussion below is to add: “This article is about the political promotion of coerced or forced deportation for the purpose of ethnic cleansing. For the social science concept, see Return migration.” The clarification that it is for the purpose of ethnic cleansing is central to what makes remigration its own topic and separates it from other forms of deportation, and reflects the first sentence of the lead. This would address the concern that people might come across the page and think that it covers other deportation initiatives that are not aimed at ethnic cleansing. --Aquillion (talk) 19:41, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

  For now, this sounds agreeable to me. I sympathize with the confusion as this is a semi-complex term that has seemingly become a casualty of dog whistle politics, but the sources interpreting the various meanings appear legitimate. Cheers. DN (talk) 21:55, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

  Yeah, that's fine. Simonm223 (talk) 23:46, 18 June 2026 (UTC)

  Seems reasonable to me. Cadddr (talk) 04:06, 19 June 2026 (UTC)

I don't understand why you guys didn't just change the title and have remigration redirect to the far more reasonable article. This is just confusing. ~2026-34318-36 (talk) 20:45, 24 June 2026 (UTC)