Right-wing campaigns place immigration as the fourth problem facing Spaniards

Concern about immigration is on the rise in Spain. The latest barometer of the Center for Sociological Research (CIS), in July, reflected that 16.9% of society placed it among its most important concerns, almost ten points more than a year earlier, when only 7.7% cited it. The increase does not correspond, however, with a significant increase in the arrival of foreigners to the country. But it does coincide with the worsening of the xenophobic political discourses of PP and Vox and the emergence of a new far-right party.

A review of CIS reports from recent decades reflects an upward trend in recent years. In January 2022, concern about immigration barely exceeded 2%. In surveys, it was well below other issues such as the economy, housing or health. Concern has gradually escalated and was among the top ten concerns of citizens in November 2023.

This summer, it was already the fourth most common concern for Spaniards, after unemployment, political problems in general and the economic crisis, and it is at its highest level in the last 15 years. Immigration has become a major concern for Spanish society, especially since 2006, during the so-called cayuco crisis, which led to a sharp increase in the number of migrants arriving on the Canary Islands. And then this perception peaked in 2018, coinciding with the emergence of Vox in the front line of Spanish politics with its racist speeches.

The data reflect that immigration is at the centre of the priorities of the Spanish people when the political arena debates this issue. At this time, it coincides with a peak of saturation of the reception centres for migrant minors in the Canary Islands and Ceuta, and it occurs in the middle of the debate on the reform of the immigration law that PP and Junts rejected a month ago in Congress. The Government, with the support of the Canarian Executive, was looking for a stable formula for the distribution of migrant minors to other autonomous regions, but was unable to approve it and is now studying alternative ways to address this legislation.

The CIS data also coincide with an increase in xenophobia in political discourse. In recent months, Spain has seen the emergence of a new far-right party, Se Acabó La Fiesta, led by Alvise Pérez, which essentially feeds on spreading racist rumours to criminalise the migrant population. This party won three seats and just over 800,000 votes in the last European elections.

What happened in Mocejón (Toledo) just ten days ago shows the modus operandi of the far-right leader. A 20-year-old man allegedly murdered a minor in the town. Before any details of the investigation were revealed, the MEP spoke on his Telegram channel about a nearby mosque and suggested that the perpetrator had been an immigrant. The information was proven false in a matter of hours, when the Civil Guard arrested the murderer.

In the midst of the emergence of this new far-right phenomenon and in constant competition with Vox, which has further deepened its racist messages, the PP has changed its discourse in recent months. During the electoral campaign in Catalonia for the elections last May, its leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, attacked “illegal immigration” that “occupies” houses and linked the arrival of migrants to crime, in the same style as Santiago Abascal’s party.

And the Alliança Catalana party, which was fined a few days ago for saying that “in an Islamic Catalonia there would be gang rapes, genital mutilations and forced marriages”, won two seats and 118,302 votes. Both this party and Vox took advantage of the campaign to stir up xenophobia at a time when, as in the rest of the State, Catalan society sees immigration as one of its main problems.

The latest barometer from the Centre d’Estudis d’Opinió de Catalunya indicated that half of the people surveyed consider that there are too many immigrants and that immigration laws are too flexible. Perceptions vary depending on the vote: among supporters of Alliança Catalana, these values ​​rise to 97% of those surveyed. And among Vox supporters, they rise to 88%.

The perception of immigration in Spanish society is worsening as the months go by, with no significant change in the data showing a change in trends: growth has been constant since the end of the economic crisis in 2008. Nor is the peak of concern in July related, for example, to an extraordinary increase in the number of immigrants arriving in the Canary Islands or Ceuta and Melilla. In January and February, when arrivals did experience a year-on-year jump, concern was not as high as in recent months.

The data also show that, since 2015, the two countries that have brought in the most immigrants are Colombia and Venezuela, the latter welcomed by the right. Specifically, taking that year as a reference, 357,000 arrived from the Caribbean country and 292,000 did so from Morocco. The same paradox occurs in the CIS barometers as with the perception of the state of the economy. When respondents are asked about the problems that affect them personally, immigration drops several steps in the ranking.

Society perceives that there is much more immigration than there really is

A recent study by The Iseak Foundationbased on a survey with a sample of more than 3,000 people, shows a significant disconnect between the perception and reality of the population. Citizens generally believe that there are many more immigrants than actually live in Spain, that they work much less than they do and that they receive much more social benefits than they really do.

An electoral advertisement by Vox in the 2021 Madrid campaign compared, with false data, the aid received by unaccompanied minors (illustrated with hoods and balaclavas) with that of a retired grandmother.

According to the study, in Spain citizens believe that the immigrant population reaches 27.8% of the total population when the real percentage is ten points lower. And those surveyed believe that 50% of the population receives social assistance when the real figure is 10%.

The study does not determine whether there is a direct relationship between an increase in racist or xenophobic political discourse and greater social animosity towards immigration, but it does detect some biases. “In general, we make a lot of mistakes,” says Odra Quesada, a postdoctoral researcher at Iseak, referring to society’s difficulties in correctly perceiving the reality of immigration. “But people with a university education, those with a left-wing ideology and also those from the upper class –related to the level of education– make fewer mistakes,” she explains, regarding the study.

The CIS also identifies a greater concern about immigration based on ideological bias. It is mentioned by 43% of Vox voters, 13.41% of PP voters, 12% of PSOE voters and just 2.1% of Sumar voters. It also records a decrease in concern as the level of education increases.

What Iseak’s work does observe is a correlation between incorrect perceptions about immigration and misinformation and hoaxes. According to Quesada, to carry out the study they divided the sample into two groups. The first group was given the questionnaire, which lasted about twenty minutes, without any prior guidelines. The second group was shown two academic texts with objective data on the subject. The subsequent responses were not only closer to reality, they also showed a better predisposition to public integration policies and in general a more positive attitude towards the phenomenon.

For this reason, one of the proposals that the work offers to try to reduce this gap is a campaign in institutes and schools to train the young population with tools to detect hoaxes. “What other countries do is teach how to identify misinformation in pre-university education and determine which words are usually used in misleading, decontextualized information, etc.,” Quesada adds.

“In Spain it is extremely important because a large part of the voters who are now in anti-immigration parties are quite young,” he explains. The CIS data also point in this direction: the segment of the population most concerned about immigration is the 18 to 24 age group: 21.2% of those surveyed mention it.