Sharp drop in deportations and massive naturalization of Moroccans
Spain is making headlines both domestically and internationally for the episodes of immigration-related violence taking place on its streets.
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A growing insecurity
At this point, only a fanatic could deny the climate of insecurity created in some cities by idle young immigrants, all of them men and mostly of North African origin. Of course, pointing out the origin of the perpetrators does not imply criminalizing all those who share the same origin. The fact that there are North Africans who cause problems does not imply that all North Africans are like that. In fact, I am convinced that, as with any group of any origin, the majority are honest people who have entered Spain legally and live off their work, and that therefore they deserve respect to the same extent that they respect others.
From Moroccan prisons to the Spanish border
The problem arises when a group of undesirables sneaks in among this group of honest people and starts causing trouble. In 2024, the King of Morocco pardoned 5,500 prisoners, of which 4,831 were cannabis growers, the cultivation of which was legalized in 2021 in that African country. In August of last year, the socialist radio station Cadena SER warned: “The mass pardon of prisoners in Morocco is causing concern in Campo de Gibraltar“, noting that the country could be positioning itself to control both the regulated market “and the illicit market,” including drug trafficking to Spain.
Coincidentally, a few weeks later, another Spanish socialist media outlet, El País, reported: “60 arrested in Morocco for organizing a “massive operation” to force migrants into Ceuta on social media.” I’m linking to these news stories from left-wing media to highlight that this is not an invention of right-wing media. Many illegal immigrants arrive in Spain from Morocco, and we know nothing about them. They may be people who simply want a better life or people with criminal records. Illegal entry into a country is often an easy way for criminals to sneak across a border.
The sharp drop in deportations of illegal immigrants under Sánchez
Yesterday, the digital newspaper The Objective published a graph showing the sharp drop in deportations of illegal immigrants in Spain since 2019. The figures provided by this media are very eloquent: “in the seven years of Mariano Rajoy (2011-2018), around 47,000 were deported by the same means. In contrast, Pedro Sánchez’s government has accumulated around 15,000 expulsions so far“. This is less than a third of those carried out by the previous government.
The logical question is: What interest could Spanish socialism have in allowing so many illegal immigrants to stay in Spain? After all, these are people who in many cases create insecurity on our streets, who use public services without paying taxes and who also lead to lower wages in some economic sectors, when they finally obtain papers.
Seeking a new electoral breeding ground for the left
In 2016, Merry Hermanus, a member of the Belgian Socialist Party, explained it this way, referring to his country’s case: “Without the immigrant population, the Socialist Party would have been reduced to eight percent of the electorate in Brussels. We have become prisoners.” This largely explains the left’s rapprochement with North African immigrants (those from Latin American countries tend to be Catholic and more hostile to the left). In a left that has lost much of its prestige among workers, due to colossal unemployment figures with its economic policies and the deterioration of modest neighborhoods (partly due to massive illegal immigration), North African immigrants are an important electoral clientele.
Thus, with this massive influx of North African immigrants, the left hopes to achieve political gain once these people obtain the nationality of their destination country. Significantly, since 2018 (when Sánchez came to power) 237,000 Moroccans have obtained Spanish nationality. One wonders how this left can simply disregard the growing deterioration of the working-class neighborhoods where its traditional electoral grounds were, neighborhoods that are increasingly leaning toward right-wing parties that are opposed to mass immigration policies.
Turning neighborhood backlash into an electoral scarecrow
This could be explained by the second political benefit that socialism gains from immigration: using the rejection of these problems as an electoral scarecrow, presenting as “far right” even many residents without political concerns and who protest against the acts of violence perpetrated by some immigrants in their neighborhoods. This serves the left to mobilize its voters and polarize the political debate, presenting socialists as a dam against “fascism.”
We are obviously facing a perverse way of obtaining yet another political benefit from a conflict that the left itself fuels, increasing its permissiveness with illegal immigration without fear of things getting out of hand, because that would only serve to further fuel a vicious circle: more problems caused by violent immigrants, more neighborhood reactions, and more messages from the left describing the neighbors as “fascists.”
The fall of other socialist parties that supported this strategy
It should be noted that the Socialist Party (PSOE) may be digging its own electoral grave with this strategy. Let’s consider what happened in other countries with left-wing parties that pursued the same irresponsible immigration policies.
In France, the Socialist Party has experienced a sharp decline: it was one of the country’s largest parties until 2012 and today it holds less than 10% of the vote. In Belgium, the Socialist Party reached its historic low in 2024, with 8% of the vote in the elections for the House of Representatives. In Germany, the SPD socialists fell this year to their lowest percentage of votes since 1949, with 20.1%, after trying, too late, to change its discourse on immigration to a tougher one. Will we see something like this in Spain?
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Photo: Europa Press. Local police and Civil Guards deployed in Torre Pacheco, Murcia, in response to the riots caused by violent acts by North African immigrants.