Yolanda Díaz's '500,000 migrant girls' claim sparks outrage and ridicule

Vice President claims 500,000 migrant girls in Ceuta

How many underage migrant girls can Ceuta accommodate? The figure attributed to the Government's vice president is off the charts: 500,000. That's more than the entire city's population, one of the two Spanish enclaves in North Africa. The correction didn't come from the opposition or the media, but from within her own party, turning the gaffe into the week's running joke.

What she said and who corrected her

According to the narrative circulating from a party event, the vice president allegedly stated there were five hundred thousand underage migrant girls in Ceuta. Even Pepe Álvarez, a veteran trade union leader, reportedly had to correct her on the spot. The scene was shared on social media, and the error escalated from a minor detail to a headline. There's something telling about the rectification coming from her own side rather than an adversary.

Why 500,000 doesn't add up for Ceuta

Ceuta's population doesn't even reach half a million. The number of migrant girls attributed to the vice president alone exceeds the total population of the city where they are supposedly located. The only way to sustain the claim is to avoid doing the math. The conversation has included descriptions of the humanitarian aid operation in the area — tents, food distribution, hygiene supplies, and condoms — dimensioned for a much smaller volume. No one organizes logistics like that without knowing the numbers.

Magnitude errors as a pattern

This isn't the first instance. We recall Rita Maestre, who described a municipal swimming pool as 25 square meters when the Olympic standard is 25 meters in length. Behind each such blunder lies a common trait: the person making it doesn't do the mental calculation because they don't need to. And if they are never asked to account for it, they never learn to do so.

Ceuta, a recurring stage for immigration policy

The city returns to the spotlight whenever the immigration debate intensifies. Its status as a land border with Segarro makes it a testing ground for discourse and strategies. This explains why a preposterous figure about minors in Ceuta acts as a trigger: it hits the exact point where policy and reality have been out of sync for years. The migratory pressure is real; the number attached to it, not always.

From joke to resignation

Reactions range from mockery to weariness. Some dismiss it with a shrug, saying, 'it doesn't matter, anything goes here now and nothing happens.' Others note the sinking level of debate and the lack of accountability from those who should demand rigor. A third, more uncomfortable group, points to what the episode reveals about who occupies positions of power. A slip-up, they say. Five hundred thousand, others retort.

Underlying this is the suspicion that such errors are no longer corrected or punished. The anecdote — a rally, an impossible number, an external correction — summarizes better than any report how public affairs are managed. With these ingredients, the strange thing isn't the error. The strange thing is that at this point, anyone is still surprised.