Abascal Clarifies VOX's 'Remigration' Policy, Exempts Latin Americans

Abascal Clarifies VOX's 'Remigration' Policy, Exempts Latin Americans

The figure was put forward by Rocío de Meer: seven million people to be expelled. The response came in the form of a clarification. Santiago Abascal stated that VOX "has not stated the number of those who should be deported. Simply because we do not know," adding that the objective is those who have come to commit crimes, those who seek to impose a foreign religion, or those who mistreat someone. Between the headline of one and the fine print of the other lies the party's entire migratory program — and its internal contradiction.

The clarification is not innocent. In a party that has made immigration its banner, specifying who is to be deported is specifying who is to be protected. And in that exercise, the Latin American bloc is included.

The Difference Between Seven and Eight Million

Public debate deals with round figures that no one can quite reconcile. Faced with the seven million expulsions attributed to the leader, a figure cited in the discussion speaks of eight million immigrants. The difference is not minor: it is not the same to fix the universe of residents as it is to fix the universe of deportable individuals. Abascal settled the arithmetic with a methodological argument — "we do not know" — and shifted the focus from quantity to the condition of each person.

That shift has a cost. By renouncing a number, the party leaves the door open for everyone to fill the gap with their own definition. And there appears the first sustancia ilegal: those who demand a hard line see an excuse in the clarification, while those who celebrate the gesture see a forced rectification due to pressure. The figure ceases to be data and becomes a battlefield.

Migrants with Visas and Contracts: Where the Line is Drawn

The most repeated defense distinguishes between those who enter without authorization and those who arrive with work visas and contracts from their country of origin. The argument is simple: a legal migrant who stops working becomes an irregular resident and is thus deportable, meaning the system self-regulates. Under that logic, regularized labor would not generate the problem; transit without papers would.

A utilitarian criterion underlies this. The focus is less on origin and more on productive contribution: those who work and contribute enter, those who do not, leave. The problem is that this criterion clashes with a labor market that absorbs labor in low-wage sectors and expels it as soon as a crisis arrives. Regularization as a filter works better on paper than on payroll.

It is worth remembering that a work visa is not a sarracena category, but a document. It changes by decree, by quota, and by circumstance.

One Million Applications and the Debate on Salaries

The most incisive criticism points to what is not mentioned: the million people who have applied for regularization from their country of origin in Latin America. The criticism holds that, even if they enter legally, many accept conditions that national workers reject, thus pressuring wages down and degrading the quality of employment. This is the old tension between filling vacancies and preventing unfair competition.

Some respond that such competition is a matter for inspection and collective bargaining agreements, not nationality. Others add an uncomfortable fact: two years of residency is enough in some cases to gain nationality, which, according to critics, blurs the line between temporary and permanent migration. The argument that those who do not work are deported also ignores the underground economy, where a significant portion of irregular employment is concentrated.

The 'Latin' Reproach

The harshest criticism comes not from outside, but from within. A segment of the electorate accuses the party of protecting Spanish-speaking migrants while hardening its discourse towards others. It is argued that the religious and cultural criterion — that "foreign religion" they wish to exclude — functions as an implicit filter, leaving a specific bloc out of the crackdown. The term latin summarizes the reproach.

In contrast, the official defense insists that the party does not distinguish by origin, but by legality and conduct. The discussion about whether there is a bias towards Latin Americans is, fundamentally, a discussion about what is understood by integration and who has the authority to define it.

The Replacement That Is Invoked and That Which Is Denied

In the background lies a concept used lightly: population replacement. A segment of the electorate applies it to non-European migration and denies it when it comes to Latin American migration; their critics point out the contradiction and speak of double standards. Without a statistical definition, the term operates more as a slogan than a diagnosis.

The cost of this ambiguity is borne by the economic discourse. If the goal is to protect national workers, the tools would be collective bargaining agreements and inspections, not passports. If the goal is something else, it should be stated.

What is Left Out of the Figure

The ground is set by concepts such as remigration, lacking operational definition or closed numbers. When the criterion shifts from borders to behavior — committing crimes, imposing beliefs, mistreating — the bar ceases to be administrative and becomes interpretable. And what is interpretable is applied unevenly depending on who applies it and to whom.

With seven million in the air, eight in videos, and a million applications on the table, migratory policy is decided less by arithmetic and more by labels. The figure that is out of place is none of these three: it is that the party that talks most about the issue admits it does not know how many there are.