Immigration and the battle for the narrative in Catalonia
The next elections in Catalonia are scheduled for May 2027, but the parties have already begun a campaign that starts well before the official calendar. Catalan politics, marked by collective frustration following the failure of the independence process, channels some of this discontent toward immigration, making it the focus of political debate. This construction of narratives shapes public perception long before the polls open, and the parties respond to the demands of a segment of the population calling for greater immigration control. Thus, the immigration debate becomes the axis around which the new boundaries of Catalan identity and social cohesion are projected and negotiated.
In this scenario, pressure from the far right has shifted the immigration debate towards increasingly restrictive positions. What had been a marginal discourse has become a central narrative within Catalan institutions. Together for Catalonia, motivated by the growing rivalry of Aliança Catalana – which is already challenging it for the third place according to the latest polls—, has implemented measures that, under the guise of better managing immigration, end up criminalizing immigrants. A significant case is that of Figueres, where Together has restricted voter registration denying it to families who, unable to access affordable rent, are forced to live in employment situations. But the phenomenon is not limited to Junts. In Barcelona, the PSC —at the suggestion of Junts itself- This November, the government approved the inclusion of administrative sanctions for "uncivil behavior" in the residency report, a fundamental document for regularizing the status of foreign nationals. These policies, increasingly influenced by far-right ideology, place the immigrant population at the center of the public debate on security and crime, fueling the false and dangerous equation between immigration and social conflict.
This escalation of proposals and rhetoric, conditioned by the far-right's ideological framework, has devastating consequences for immigrants and people of immigrant origin. Policies that associate immigration with social and cultural problems not only criminalize these groups but also accentuate their political and media marginalization. Immigrants are a constant subject of public debate, but their voices are almost never heard: they are not given space, nor is their right to define their own narrative or to intervene in the issues that directly affect them acknowledged. This silencing reinforces their construction as theothersystematically presented as the "problem to be solved" and never as a political subject with legitimacy to fully participate in issues affecting society as a whole.
The public debate on immigration is structured around a three-pronged perspective—economic, cultural, and security-based—that instrumentalizes the presence of immigrants. Discussions center on whether immigrants "contribute" or "burden" resources, whether they are culturally "compatible" with the host society, and immigration is often associated with incivility or crime. This approach oversimplifies the reality of migration and ignores its ethical and human rights dimensions. Although sectors such as construction, agriculture, tourism, and care work are structurally dependent on immigrant labor, the system that demands it ends up criminalizing it, while economic benefits accumulate in the hands of corporations and social costs fall on the working class.
The real challenge is to shift the framework of the public debate: it is necessary to overcome the view that understands immigration as a matter about the others and to accept it as a reality that challenges us collectively, since immigrants and people of immigrant origin are an integral part of the country's social, economic, and political fabric. It is not simply a matter of managing the arrival of foreigners, but of building fairer and more inclusive societies in which everyone has the right to live with dignity. In this sense, it is necessary to question the economic model that generates precariousness and fosters competition among working classes, and to recognize that the crisis in public services and the housing crisis do not stem from the presence of immigrants, but from neoliberal political decisions that affect all of society.
Faced with the dominant narrative—fueled by the far right and embraced by traditional parties—progressive parties have a responsibility to offer an alternative narrative that places social justice and human rights at the heart of the migration debate and rejects any concessions to political and institutional racism. Only in this way can the toxic dynamic that threatens to turn the upcoming elections into a referendum on belonging and political citizenship in Catalonia be broken.
