Alberto Núñez Feijóo clearly knows what he is talking about when he talks about immigration. What worries you is security. “For those who arrive, because they risk their lives, but also for those of us who are here, because the Spanish have the right to go out on the streets in complete safety,” he said in July, as if there were a cause-effect relationship. His parliamentary spokesman, Miguel Tellado, criticized Pedro Sánchez for not calling for the expulsion of undocumented foreigners, “while Germany and Italy talk about mass expulsions,” which they do not do either. The increase in arrivals in the Canary Islands has convinced the Popular Party that immigration is the best topic to address Vox voters and attract their support.
This week, the CIS survey has once again reinforced the Spanish people’s concern about this issue. In three months, immigration has gone from the ninth concern to the first. The sum of those who choose it as the first, second or third problem has gone from 11.2% in June to 30.4% in September. It is impossible to separate this jump from the political offensive of the PP, from the hostility against immigrants that is an essential part of the ideology and the media coverage of Vox.
In this sense, we must be realistic. The strange thing is that this point has not been reached earlier because of the powerful motivations that some political actors feel to send the message that we are facing a national emergency.
There is nothing like going from the general to the particular to arouse citizens’ concern. It is not so effective to appeal to an obstacle in an abstract way – that is why the PP has been talking for so long about “broken Spain” without it having brought it to power – and it is rather a question of referring to concrete problems of daily life. That is why Feijóo believes that it is so effective to encourage the fear of going out on the street in complete safety, by directly linking immigration and crime.
It’s a way of winking at the voter by suggesting that the more foreigners in your neighborhood or city, the safer it will be. He’d like to speak more clearly, but you understand. You don’t want to be called a racist after making a veiled racist statement.
The CIS survey itself reveals that there is a difference between selling an argument and making the voter feel it in his personal existence. This is why immigration falls to fifth place when citizens are asked about the issue that most affects them “personally”. Feijóo will think that he still has work ahead of him.
Xenophobia is a recurring theme in Santiago Abascal’s speeches in Congress. Concerned about the decline of Vox in the polls, he forced the dissolution of the autonomous coalition governments with the PP, just one year after their formation, using precisely immigration and aid to minors arriving alone in Spain. “You are dedicating 98 million euros just to feed the illegal immigrants who arrive in the Canary Islands in a year,” he told Sánchez in the last control session, as if it were an acceptable option to leave these people without food and abandoned to their fate.
As in electoral campaigns, Vox tries to oppose the Spanish to foreigners, as if the money intended for the latter had been taken away from the former.
There is no limit that cannot be wasted in this crusade. In the plenary session of the Madrid Assembly on Thursday, Vox spokesperson Rocío Monasterio took her attempt to criminalize immigrant minors to the extreme by referring to the “machetes that these men buy” with the money that the government supposedly gave them from Madrid through Díaz Ayuso. The president ignored this detail and accused her of “setting fire” to the debate on immigration and of lying.
The increase in canoe arrivals to the Canary Islands is a fact this year. Until September 15, 37,891 people arrived in Spain by sea, according to the latest UNHCR data, which represents a 57% increase over the previous year. This increase is due to what is happening in the Atlantic. Arrivals to the Canary Islands from West African ports were 26,813, double those of 2023.
Sometimes the number skyrockets. Between Wednesday night and Thursday afternoon, the maritime rescue rescued 589 people who arrived on the Canary Islands coast aboard nine boats, among them 35 women, 22 children and a baby.
Feijóo travelled to Rome on Thursday to meet with the far-right Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, whom he has repeatedly presented as a model of success. This year, the number of arrivals by sea to Italy up to September (43,804) is higher than that of Spain (37,891), but has managed to decrease by 66%. The key to this decline is the agreements with Tunisia and Libya, whose governments are paid with funds from the European Commission to control their coasts.
After a disastrous 2023 for her interests, with a 50% increase in arrivals to 150,000 people, Meloni pressured Brussels to help her. She and Ursula von der Leyen went to Tunisia with the money in hand. 105 million euros.
The price is not measured in money alone. Over the past year and a half, Tunisian police have raped hundreds of sub-Saharan migrant women, according to local NGOs, in the area near the city of Sfax on Tunisia’s eastern coast. Potential EU migrants face constant harassment from police and locals in a region where they number in the thousands. As happened in Libya, European authorities are aware of these abuses but are prepared to ignore them in order to keep the agreement with Tunisia in place.
The other measure implemented by Meloni is the agreement with Albania for the internment on its territory of those who plan to apply for political asylum. The agreement was supposed to be put into practice in the spring of this year, but legal obstacles and the reluctance of the Albanian population mean that Italy has not yet been able to send a single migrant there.
Regarding the political impact of the far-right’s messages, it should not be forgotten that there are profound differences between Spain and Italy. Meloni’s party was the most voted for with 26% in the 2022 elections. Since then, it has generally obtained around 30% support in the polls. Vox obtained 12% in 2023 and now appears in many polls with 10%.
The sharp increase in immigration to Spain in the last fifteen years has not come from the Canary Islands or Ceuta and Melilla. Its main port of entry was Barajas airport. But it is the images that appear in the media with the arrival of Moroccans or sub-Saharans in rudimentary boats that dominate media coverage and focus people’s attention. The extreme right never stops using the word “invasion” to arouse racist feelings against these people.
Images condition everyone. Also the order of the questions to the respondents. Paco Camas, research director at Ipsos Spain, believes that CIS questionnaire order influences responsesas happened in June with the housing crisis issue.
Five questions are dedicated to “inequalities between poor and rich countries” at the beginning of the survey. One of them combines this issue with immigration in these terms: “Do you think that the existing inequalities between poor and rich countries are one of the causes that explain the increase in the immigrant population in countries like Spain?” (87% say yes). Then come three questions on the wars in Ukraine and Gaza and on climate change, and immediately the question on the greatest concern of the Spanish people.
The immigration debate is full of negative feelings or feelings that reflect a strong dose of suspicion. In the long run, this has more serious effects than an investigation. As we saw in the UK in the twenty years leading up to Brexit, when no one speaks out on something that has become controversial, expectations can only get worse. It is a lost confrontation by default.
There is a defence of the rights of immigrants as human beings and another, more pragmatic one, which emphasises the economic benefits for all. The latter solution may seem selfish, but it can be very effective. In political discourse, there must also be a place for the views that economic growth, reducing the decline in birth rates and maintaining the welfare state will only be possible with the contribution of immigrants. Otherwise, the field will be left open to those who see it as nothing more than an invasion.
