The instrumentalization of immigration
Talking about immigration isn't the problem; the problem is doing it for other purposes. When in different European countries the right to asylum is questioned, family reunification is restricted, zero immigration is talked about, asylum seekers are confined to floating prisons, it is announced that anyone arriving illegally will be deported to Rwanda, or there are plans to confiscate the jewelry of asylum seekers, the problem is the immigration issue. What is sought is to attract attention and expand electoral support, in a mad dash for more votes.
For several months now, this political exploitation of immigration has also reached Spain and Catalonia. Immigration is constantly discussed in Congress, Parliament, the media, and in our immediate surroundings. In just the last few days, the PP and Vox have asked the Court of Auditors to audit the "costs" of maintaining "illegal immigration," Junts per Catalunya has proposed tightening the requirements for migrants to access social housing in Catalonia, Vox continues to talk about mass deportations, and Isabel Díaz Ayuso has defended "illegible immigration."
The consequences are far from minor: this instrumentalization of immigration creates confusion in the area of public policy, fuels conflict at the local level, and ultimately jeopardizes the functioning of our democracies. I'll give three examples. The first concerns the points-based visa proposed a few days ago by Alberto Núñez Feijóo in Murcia. Following the Anglo-Saxon model, this policy aims to open legal entry routes directly linked to the labor market and based on criteria such as education, experience, language, age, specialty, and previous ties to the country.
In itself, anything that opens legal entry routes with objective criteria is not a bad idea. But the proposal is deliberately confusing. The majority of foreigners who arrive in Spain do so without a visa, because they are citizens of either the European Union or Latin American countries that do not have the requirement (all with the exception of the Dominican Republic, Cuba, Bolivia, and Ecuador). Therefore, a points-based visa would open up new routes, not regulate existing ones. Furthermore, Feijóo goes further, turning a mechanism for regulating labor immigration into a mechanism for selecting those we want, that is, "culturally close" migrants. This means establishing a clearly discriminatory criterion and, therefore, difficult to apply, based not on what they know but on who they are.
The second example concerns the political and media hype surrounding unaccompanied minors. In a country where the net annual migration rate is more than 600,000, the reception of 5,000 unaccompanied minors has become the cause of a true institutional crisis. This institutional crisis has called into question the status of the autonomous regions, given the opposition of certain autonomous communities to the mechanism for relocating unaccompanied minors from the Canary Islands. This institutional crisis has also led to the resulting paralysis, where these minors remain confined in the Canary Islands, in overcrowded conditions and often in violation of their most basic rights. This has led to the state's blatant failure to fulfill its legal obligations toward these minors.
The third example is the debate surrounding the delegation of immigration powers to the Generalitat of Catalonia. While, based on the same principle of subsidiarity, decentralizing powers can be positive, the proposal primarily delegated management, that is, the application of laws that remained the responsibility of the state. Beyond the difficulties of implementation, closely linked to a substantial increase in resources, the problem arises, once again, when the proposal is presented for what it is not: a mechanism to decide in Catalonia what immigration we want and "fix the problems" (in the words of Míriam Nogueras) that the state has failed to address. The bill was defeated in the Congress of Deputies with the votes against it of the PP, Vox, and Podemos, who criticized it for seeking to "decentralize racism." These statements demonstrate that the instrumentalization of immigration, let us remember, in search of votes also affects left-wing parties.
All this noise is caused by the far right and at the same time contributes to its rise. Because most parties end up embracing its arguments, thinking that this will prevent the loss of votes. And because selling out what isn't theirs and paralyzing the proper functioning of institutions with failed policies leads precisely to the fatigue and distrust that fuels it.