Ayuso and Roquetas: a viral video with no geography and no jurisdiction

The Roquetas video blaming Ayuso for everything has a map problem

A video of the streets of Roquetas de Mar being used to blame Isabel Díaz Ayuso has, at the very least, a geography problem. The town is in Almería, governed by the PP, and immigration is the exclusive responsibility of the State under Article 149.1.2 of the Constitution. But the viral spat has exposed something more uncomfortable: the greenhouses' economic model relies on migrant labour working in precarious conditions.

Geography as the first victim

The "Mogadishu" label is circulating unverified. Some placed the footage in Marseille, others in Barcelona; the crest on a waste container eventually geolocated it in Roquetas. The irony of the original headline, moreover, attributed to Ayuso a town that is neither in her region nor under her remit. The Andalusian government and the town council, both run by the PP, have no power over borders either. It hardly mattered: in the ensuing row, the territorial facts were the least of it.

Greenhouses, farmhands and verbal contracts

The underlying issue is economic. Almería produces tonnes of fruit and vegetables thanks to a pool of workers from Africa who accept conditions that locals avoid. The provincial unemployment rate, however, stands at 16% in the second quarter of 2026, and foreigners already make up more than 25% of the population. Labour dumping or the sector's lifeline? Both at once. Contracts, often verbal, are legally valid, but proving them is a nightmare if a farmhand files a claim. That is the point nobody wants to touch: the model rests on that fragility.

Dividing up votes and blame

Almería's election results in the 2026 regional elections paint a complex map: the PP took 42.9% of the vote, Vox 23.2% and PSOE-A 21.5%. Against the cliché that the anti-immigration vote dominates, traditional conservatism leads. Some argue that the agricultural business community perpetuates this structural dependency and that no political force wants to touch it. On the other side, it is argued that the pull effect of the Government's mass regularisations has worsened the tension. The debate ended where the legislation begins: the State decides on the border, but town councils and regional governments manage, to a large extent, municipal registers and welfare benefits.

Meanwhile, the video keeps circulating and nobody disputes that the greenhouses don't harvest themselves. Next time an image of squalid streets is shared, it would be worth asking first whose waste container it is and whose fruit it is. The rest is noise.