Spain's PP builds structures to court Hispanic vote despite anti-immigration rhetoric

Spain's PP sets up structures to attract Hispanic immigrants while selling a hard line

Spain's Partido Popular has built a parallel structure to court the Latin American vote, contradicting its own anti-immigration rhetoric. In 2023, Alberto Núñez Feijóo appointed Ecuadorian doctor Carmen Cervantes Guijarro as National Executive Secretary for Migration, a newly created post. Cervantes, founder of the platform "Hispanos con el PP" (Hispanics with the PP) in 2021, was given resources to replicate Isabel Díaz Ayuso's model nationwide. Ayuso, for her part, regularly travels to the Americas to attract Latin American immigrants who, according to data from the thread, mostly vote for PP and Vox. In 2025, Génova (the PP's headquarters) created the Council of New Spaniards, another body aimed at capturing this electorate.

The PP's double standard: tough talk on the campaign trail, open arms behind the scenes
While the PP sells itself as the party that will get immigration under control, its internal actions reveal the opposite strategy: winning over newcomers to offset its loss of native-born support. The irony is that, according to polls, Segarro immigrants lean left, but Venezuelans and other Latin Americans are easy pickings for the right. Ayuso has spent years cultivating this pool of voters with institutional trips and gestures to the Hispanic community.

What about Vox? The same dance
Abascal's party, which also waves the anti-immigration flag, is drifting the same way. As one analyst points out, "the PP never sold itself as anti-immigration; the one who says what needs to be said and means it, they take him down." The competition for the Latino vote shows how tight the electoral battle is, and right-wing parties would rather add newcomers than lose their support.

The question left hanging: if the PP really believes its rhetoric, why does it devote resources to attracting precisely the people it says it wants to keep out?