• In a press conference on September 13, 2024, Trump pledged to conduct mass deportations of Haitian migrants living in Springfield, Ohio, regardless of their legal status, clarifying in a post the next day that he was calling for “remigration.” At the press conference, Trump stated that he would deport migrants in Springfield, Ohio, and Aurora, Colorado, to stop the “invasion” of migrants whom he claimed came from “jails” and “nests of bad people” in Venezuela. He later added on Truth Social, “We will stop all migrant flights, end all illegal entries, terminate the Kamala phone app for smuggling illegals (CBP One App), revoke deportation immunity, suspend refugee resettlement, and return Kamala’s illegal migrants to their home countries (also known as remigration).” [C-SPAN, 9/13/24; Truth Social, 9/14/24]
• Trump accused Venezuelan migrants of “taking over,” accused them of being “violent people,” and promised to “ship them back to their country,” but many Venezuelan migrants qualify for temporary protected status and are in the U.S. legally. He stated, “These are violent people that they're allowing into our country. It is truly an invasion, and we're not going to let it happen. We're going to take those violent people and we're going to ship them back to their country.” [C-SPAN, 9/18/24; United States Citizenship and Immigration Services, accessed 10/1/24]
• Trump said of mostly legal immigrants moving into Springfield, Ohio, “Can't have it. Can't have it. They've destroyed it.”  He stated, “The fact is, and I'll say it now, you have to get them the hell out. You have to get them out. I'm sorry. Get them out. Can't have it. Can't have it. They've destroyed it.” [C-SPAN, 9/23/24]

• Ethnic cleansing refers to the expulsion of an ethnic group from a given area. Using mass deportation to force people out of the country because of their ethnicity would constitute ethnic cleansing. As Yale human rights professor James Silk told PBS, “Your motivation may be that you want the people out, but if in doing that you intend to destroy the group, then it’s also genocide.” [PBS, 10/24/17]
• “Remigration” is an old term associated with forced migration, mass deportations, and ethnic cleansing and refers to a far-right policy of forcibly deporting non-white immigrants in order to prevent the so-called “great replacement.” The policy calls for “returning immigrants to their native lands in what amounts to a soft-style ethnic cleansing.” The “great replacement” conspiracy theory asserts that there is a widespread effort to replace white populations in majority white countries and in recent years has been associated with acts of real-world violence. [Associated Press, 5/16/19; Media Matters, 1/12/24]
• Huffpost, Mother Jones, and The New Republic were some of the only outlets to properly contextualize Trump’s policy of “remigration” as an element of ethnic cleansing. All three outlets explained the policy of “remigration” and its links to ethnic cleansing. Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan also weighed in, writing, “Trump calling for the ethnic cleansing of legal immigrants in the United States.” [Twitter/X, 9/23/24; HuffPost, 9/20/24; Mother Jones, 9/17/24; The New Republic, 9/18/24]
   

• CNN and Fox News both ignored Trump's call for “remigration,” while MSNBC discussed it in just one segment for less than 3 minutes. Guest Ruth Ben-Ghiat explained the definition of “remigration,” “It holds that you should be deported and sent back to your country of origin regardless of your citizenship status. Because if you really want a racial state, a white ethnostate, then whether you’re legal or illegal doesn’t matter. And that’s what Vance is saying. He doesn’t care if Haitians are here legally or not because they are the wrong race, and thus they’re going to be targeted for deportation.” [MSNBC, Ayman, 9/22/24]
• ABC’s Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS’ Mornings, Evening News, and Face the Nation; and NBC’s Today, Nightly News, and Meet the Press each failed to cover Trump's proposed policy of “remigration” in the weeks following his post.
• Likewise, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal each failed to mention Trump's post in the text of any article in any section of the papers' online and print editions.
• The Washington Post referenced Trump’s adoption of the far-right policy “remigration” in their piece on far-right Austrian political activist Martin Sellner. The Post wrote, “When The Washington Post spent time with Sellner this month, he excitedly described his latest ‘vindication’: former president Donald Trump’s mention of ‘remigration,’ Sellner’s pet project, as part of a plan to ‘end the migrant invasion of America.’” [The Washington Post, 9/28/24]
   

Media Matters searched transcripts in the SnapStream video database for all original episodes of ABC’s Good Morning America, World News Tonight, and This Week; CBS’ Mornings, Evening News, and Face the Nation; and NBC’s Today, Nightly News, and Meet the Press, as well as all original programming on CNN, Fox News Channel, and MSNBC, for any of the terms “Trump,” “former president,” “candidate,” or “nominee” within close proximity of any of the terms “remigration,” “re-migration,” “ethnic cleansing,” “resettlement,” “migrant invasion,” or “migrant flight” or any variation of the term “deport” from September 14, 2024, when GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump posted to social media that as president he will deport legal migrants in a process known as “remigration,” through September 30, 2024.

We also searched print articles in the Factiva database from the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, USA Today, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post for any of the terms “Trump,” “former president,” “candidate,” or “nominee” within roughly the same paragraph as any of the terms “remigration,” “re-migration,” “ethnic cleansing,” “resettlement,” “migrant invasion,” or “migrant flight” or any variation of the term “deport” from September 14, 2024, through September 30, 2024.

We timed segments, which we defined as instances when Trump's post to social media that as president he will deport legal migrants in a process known as “remigration” was the stated topic of discussion or when we found significant discussion of the post. We defined significant discussion as instances when two or more speakers in a multitopic segment discussed the post with one another.

We also timed mentions, which we defined as instances when a speaker in a segment on another topic mentioned Trump's post without another speaker in the segment engaging with the comment, and teasers, which we defined as instances when the anchor or host promoted a segment about Trump's post scheduled to air later in the broadcast.