Talking about migration

This mounting immigration crisis highlights tensions between regional and central responsibility in Spain, just as last October's floods did, writes columnist Mark Nayler

Mark Nayler

Malaga

Friday, 3 January 2025, 13:25

Last week, as Spain immersed itself in prawn-and-cava-fuelled festivities, the Canary Islands had no respite from a problem that has been steadily ... escalating over the last few years. Over the Christmas period, 28 boats drifted into the islands, carrying over 1,700 irregular migrants from West Africa. In total last year, the Canaries registered 45,000 undocumented arrivals, resulting in a situation that the region's president, Fernando Clavijo Batlle, says is "unsustainable".

The lethal Atlantic crossing risked by these men, women and children has already claimed its first victims of 2025. On New Year's Day, two dead bodies were found on a boat that arrived in Tenerife with sixty people on board.

This mounting immigration crisis highlights tensions between regional and central responsibility in Spain, just as last October's floods did.

Echoing complaints made by Valencia's leader Carlos Mazón in the wake of that disaster, Clavijo claims that the Spanish government has abandoned the islands in their attempt to cope with unprecedented migration flows.

Pedro Sánchez allocated 50 million euros to the region last year for that purpose, but clearly money alone is not enough. Last summer, the Socialist leader also tried to relocate several hundred of the unaccompanied minors currently in the Canaries to other parts of Spain, a proposal that was sensibly backed by the PP. In response to this apparently unforgivable concession to practicality, Vox quit several regional coalitions with the Conservatives (including in Valencia).

I can't help suspect, though, that the Spanish government's hesitancy over the Canaries is not just due to tensions between central and regional power.

Political discourse has become polarised to such an extent that, if a party talks about controlling illegal migration, it's blackballed as "anti-immigration". No middle ground is acknowledged, which is particularly damaging to a debate about such a complex issue: either you're anti-immigration, in which case you talk about control, or you're "pro-immigration", in which case you pretend that your country has unlimited resources and that there's no meaningful difference between illegal and legal migration. You pretend, in other words, that there's not even a problem to deal with in the first place.

Sánchez is not in denial to that extent, at least. And it is Vox that has done more than any other party in Spain to lower the tone of the debate about immigration. Its absurd line that every illegal immigrant, especially those who prefer the creed of Mohammed to that of Jesus Christ, is out to nick your purse and pension, would merely be laughable had it not already had so much influence.

Much as I'd love to start 2025 on a note of optimism, I suspect that a solution to the Canaries' troubles won't be found until the terms of the debate are changed. So long as Sánchez is scared of being labelled "anti-immigration", there can be no open, honest discussion about how to tackle a problem that will not resolve itself.

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