"Isabel Díaz Cayucos": Vox leads Ayuso to toughen anti-immigration rhetoric

MadridAt the PP congress in early July, Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party certified in writing the radicalization of his migration discourseIn fact, Vox sources describe the new popular ideology as a "copy" of their own and criticize the "lack of coherence" in the PP's discourse, which in this regard is "going by the polls." No poll indicates that Isabel Díaz Ayuso's absolute majority in the Community of Madrid is in danger. On the contrary, the leader of the Madrid PP seems to have no rival, and the latest poll, published this week by Sigma Dos for Telemadrid, not only predicts that, if elections were repeated, she could form a government alone, but also that the Madrid PP would gain another two seats. In the case of Vox, it would gain one seat, although it would still be 60 deputies behind Ayuso. Despite the comfort forecast by the polls, the president of Madrid has also joined the escalating discourse against illegal immigration.

Ayuso has been characterized by having deployed a seemingly open-door discourse, although she has always done so with nuances and focused on a very specific type of immigration. "One type of immigration is not the same as another," she said just a year ago in an interview on Antena 3. The Madrid president's mistrust of newcomers from Muslim societies, for example, is not new and she has always verbalized his preference for Latin Americans, whom she considers "brothers" and whose ease of integration in Spain she highlights. In the debate on the state of the region this Friday, Ayuso acknowledged this radicalization and warned against the "process of the Islamization of Europe." The Madrid president linked it to her defense of Israel, a country she has described as a geostrategic dam against this "Islamization" and with whom she exhibits complicity despite the attacks by Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Gaza. The deployment of this vocabulary, associated with the far right, coincides with the offensive that Vox is waging against Ayuso on this issue.

A couple of weeks ago, Santiago Abascal's party dubbed the leader of the Madrid People's Party "Isabel Díaz Cayucos" on social media, in reference to the small boats used by immigrants to try to reach Spain. In the plenary session of the Madrid Assembly, Vox spokesperson Isabel Pérez Moñino, a rising profile in the party trying to win votes from the Popular Party, called him this and accused him of being permissive toward immigration. "There is a Madrid that you ignore. That of the girl raped in Hortaleza by a fake Moroccan minor supported with the money you steal from her parents [...] Is it really the case that Madrid has room for everyone? [...] It opens the doors to mass immigration and doesn't give priority to Spaniards," stated Moñino, who criticizes Ayus, comply with the distribution of immigrant minors imposed by the Spanish government to alleviate the overcrowding at centers in the Canary Islands, Ceuta, and Melilla. The Popular Party leader argued that it is required by law as well as by the vulnerability of the group.

Rape in the Hortaleza district

The episode referred to by Vox has become a leitmotif for the far right. The arrest a couple of weeks ago of a minor resident of a shelter in the Madrid district of Hortaleza for the alleged sexual assault of an underage girl has fueled xenophobia. Two hooded individuals attacked two minors residing at the center, and Vox encouraged protests. Although the Spanish government delegation prohibited the protest in front of the shelter, Vox still held an event—with little power to attract people. Ayuso's reaction added fuel to the fire: the Madrid president denounced that the minors arriving in the region "are becoming more aggressive every day and arrive in worse conditions" and called on the Spanish government to return the detained minor and 45 other adolescents to their country of origin.

To defend herself against Vox, Ayuso passes the buck to the Spanish government and blames Pedro Sánchez for causing these types of episodes by promoting "massive" and "uncontrolled" immigration that leaves no room for integration within the regions. The PP leader balances two things and, despite the escalation, maintains a certain ambiguity. On the one hand, she lamented that the left calls her "racist" and that, at the same time, Vox attacks her to continue defending Madrid as an open and "mixed-race" territory. Ayuso argued that it is the far right that is guided by the polls to snatch votes from her. "I give them arguments for their videos," she said with resignation.