A year has passed and I still remember the first jet of cold water I felt at the Madrid Assembly. I have seen hundreds of times the speeches of the extreme (and not so extreme) right in the media and, despite this, I have listened in person to the speeches that criminalize the migrant population and that serve as a loudspeaker for generating hatred in the streets, always means a hard blow for those of us who firmly believe in democracy and coexistence.
I am the daughter and granddaughter of immigration and I belong to that generation who experienced firsthand the racist raids, ethnic profiling and the rise of racist and hate speech against those of us who represent diversity, even if we have grown up, socialized and politicized. in the societies in which our fathers and mothers arrived.
Ayuso has continued to demonstrate racism and use migration as a weapon against the government in recent months. He kept showing his inconsistencies and contradictions when talking about migration and kept repeating that Spain should follow Meloni’s example and that the borders should be even more militarized, as Abascal demands. If he talks about migrant children, he does not hesitate to give voice to racist hoaxes, as happened in Alcalá de Henares, or to designate the “migrant crisis” as the origin of the collapse of social services. The president thus conceals the fact that the collapse of primary care, the lack of professional training places and waiting lists in health care are due to her policy of dismantling public services.
Ayuso has become an expert in using migration hoaxes to cover up the shamelessness of her disastrous management (the Community of Madrid remains at the bottom of the DEC index, the index that measures the development of social services, prepared by the State Association of Directors). and social service managers). The PP’s strategy is always the same: divide and conquer. Divide the migrant population between the good and the bad, as if there are people who deserve rights and others who do not; designing access to rights and distinguishing people according to their origin and skin color is still the dotted line that unites them with the far right.
If Ayuso was interested in migrants, she would have updated her immigration plan (2019-2021) which already expired three years ago; He would be concerned about the first reception center for minors in Hortaleza, saturated after having tripled the number of places; He would worry about the majority of social workers and educators at the center who are on leave; would commit to welcoming migrant minors from the Canary Islands who, after receiving financial funds from the government, have not yet welcomed any. Or he would worry about crowding boys and girls in an industrial zone two hours’ walk from the nearest hospital, like in Fuenlabrada.
Abascal and Ayuso are concerned about migration and their response is common: further militarize the borders, that is, give millions of euros to businessmen in the immigration control sector so that more people die there. While some want us to go rightsless to further exploit migrant workers, others argue that those who reside here can do so with labor, economic, cultural and social rights like what ILP Regularization Now offers.
Migration is part of the essence and nature of being human. For those worried about migration, I remind them that the original name of Madrid is Magerit and that it was created by Muslims; I would remind them how Madrilenians and Spaniards went into exile during the civil war in Latin America; It might remind them where their favorite footballers come from or the workers they meet. If Madrid is a welcoming city, it is thanks to the social and cultural fabric of the neighborhood and the networks of support and care for migrants that fill our neighborhoods with dignity.
