Greg Bovino Was the Star at the European Migration Conference

Saturday morning, as hundreds of right-wing activists and lawmakers from across Europe gathered outside a conference square in the central Portuguese town of Figueira da Foz, a group of a half-dozen men dressed in identical uniforms of khaki chinos, dark blue shirts, and sunglasses marched into the parking lot.

On the straps of their jackets, some wore a circular red and blue symbol of Patriot Fronta white US group that was formed after the 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, and is known to march en masse wearing masks and targeting left-wing events. When WIRED asked one of the men if he was part of the group, he responded.

The group was just part of a flood of right-wing Americans who traveled thousands of miles to attend the Migrants Forum, a conference held in southern Porto with European political leaders and hundreds of others to discuss. migrationa racist, right-wing European system of deporting minorities and immigrants from the West.

The most famous white supremacist Jared Taylor, President of the New York Young Republican Club Stefano Forteand Greg Bovinoformer head of the Border Patrol himself terrorizing immigrant communities in Minneapolis and Chicago, they were all there.

Bovino said he was there to build closer links with European right-wing groups and said migration is already taking place in the US, although it is not happening quickly.

“This past year, migration has really happened (in the US) … but (they) have a long way to go,” Bovino told WIRED on Saturday. He then criticized the leaders behind the impeachment effort, including Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin. President Donald Trump “needs a little better advice, and Mullin is a great guy, a great driver, no doubt about that,” Bovino said. “Maybe they can fix a leaky faucet, but a million illegal aliens is not a leaky solution.” (Mullin previously ran a plumbing business.)

Migration is a process that has become more popular in Europe in the last five years, mainly due to the efforts of the organizer Martin Sellner, a former member of the Nazi party who founded the far-right Identitarian Movement of Austria and is called the “godfather of remigration” in the event.

Migration, according to the plan Sellner published on its websitein the end they will see the removal of illegal immigrants in the country as well as citizens who have not adopted the culture and traditions of the country. The idea has been endorsed by far-right political parties such as the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and Vox in Spain, as Sellner has well-connected with far-right parties across Europe. Other elected MPs who support immigration spoke at the event.

In recent years, this idea has crossed the Atlantic, where Trump and his administration are visible he accepted the ideamaking a Office of Remigration within the State Department and promoting the idea on social media.

Collaboration seemed to be the name of the game at Sellner’s conference, where Americans traveled to Europe to learn from their right-wing peers, exchange information, and form alliances with far-right activists, extremist groups, and political parties.

Before the conference began, journalists, including WIRED, were informed that they were not allowed to attend and were instead relegated to a tent in the parking lot that had a small table, armfuls of chairs, and one iPad that could be heard from inside the speakers. Organizers of the organization said the decision was made to protect the identity of others who could be fired if they were told to attend the event. (Attendees, whom WIRED saw walking through the event, appeared to be white guys, many dressed in crisp chinos, bare ankles, and shiny white shirts.)