Preface to English readers

On July 30-31, 2026, around 70,000 people crossed over to the North African Spanish enclave of Ceuta / سبتة (Sebta)—one of Europe’s only two land borders with Africa. The events have, so far, caused over 140 deaths, becoming one of the worst catastrophes ever in Western border politics and the single deadliest massacre in Spanish border history. Much speculation has emerged regarding the cause of the crisis. The dead and disappeared, however, are still being counted.

This piece provides structural context for these recent events. Instead of focusing on the different theories going around—smuggler network roguery, geopolitical Moroccan hybrid war, violation of Spanish territorial integrity, failure of “liberal” immigration policy, US-Zionist plots against Pedro Sánchez—it details the long-term conditions that made the crisis possible.

Written in May 2026, the piece delves into the immigration policies of Spain’s “progressive” government, setting them in their regional historical context and their insertion in the world-system. It analyzes not just Sánchez, but also the debates with its left-wing coalition partners in government (Podemos, and later, Sumar). This enables the reader to (1) understand the relation between Western social democracy and immigration policy, (2) parse out the different migration discourses and tactics among social-democratic formations, and (3) understand their structural constraints and continued commitment to the agenda of imperialism.

The piece was originally written for the militant Spanish magazine Nuevo Ciclo, part of the Marx XXI editorial project and associated with the budding Movimiento Socialista (@cjsocialista), a revolutionary organization working across the Spanish state, and is intended to be useful for anti-racist, anti-imperialist, and socialist organizers and scholars. It will be of interest to anybody looking to know what happens to “leftist” or “progressive” projects once in power, and how they might relate to the central questions of chauvinism, internationalism, and socialist strategy. The first and last sections provide a structural reading of the question from an anti-imperialist perspective. The intervening parts detail the historical trajectory, debates, and specificities of social-democratic immigration politics in Spain. The author will be producing a full reading of the Ceuta massacre soon.

Introduction

As long as imperialism exists, you will have racism. — Assata Shakur

In the lowest decile of Spain’s wage distribution, the migrant proletariat earns about 60% less than the native working class. In the next six deciles, the gap does not fall below 40%.^[1] However, social democracy insists on framing migration as a “human rights” issue rather than a matter of class struggle. This article examines the immigration policies of social democracy in Spain to understand its systemic role, gain clarity on its recent historical trajectory, and to begin developing an organic project of our own capable of confronting capital.

In Spain, a series of mechanisms produce the racial stratification of the working class, creating a migrant and/or racialized “underclass” within the proletariat. This underclass is subject to higher levels of violence, discipline, and dispossession, which ensure its integration as cheap labor or as a disposable reserve army. This configuration is, in turn, both a result and a domestic expression of the stratification of the global working class imposed by imperialism. It is a form of imperialism at home that reproduces international methods of discipline and plunder on the domestic level.

Although it arises from imperialist devastation itself, migration to the North poses a problem for capital. Not because capital does not want to import cheap labor—a structural necessity—nor because it lacks the actual capacity to integrate more workers. Immigration is a concern because it systematically challenges the global stratification of the proletariat that capital needs to function, both politically and economically. This stratification is necessary to (1) maintain internal social peace through nationally- (or continentally-) delimited concessions,^[2] (2) ensure the realization of value through core mass consumption and thus avoid overproduction, and (3) enable “global labor arbitrage”, its economic model par excellence, which depends on the relative immobility of the labor force—especially in the peripheries—to ensure a net appropriation of value from the periphery to the center.^[3]

The migratory program of the bourgeoisie is a project of geographical and social management of the global class structure designed to ensure its economic and political domination. It consists of keeping the peripheral proletariat in its place—out of sight, in its own country, exploited, forgotten, or dead—and the core proletariat lulled into complacency by various forms of supremacism and futile liberalisms. Due to the evolution of class structure in the West, the need to subordinate the migrant underclass in the core is congenital to capital, not contingent, just as the need to subordinate the South is. This is the only possible starting point for a politics capable of confronting the new revolutionary cycle.^[4]

Historical Overview

I. From the 1980s to the 21st Century

The contemporary history of immigration control in Spain begins in 1985, with the urgent passage of Organic Law 7/1985. This first Immigration Law (LOEx) did not respond to a phenomenon of domestic significance, given the extremely low presence of non-European foreigners. It was a requirement from Brussels to ensure that Spain’s accession would not lead to unwanted migratory inflows to the north. Despite its domestic irrelevance, the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE, social democrats) and the People's Party (PP, Christian Democrats) agreed on the justification, citing supposed security reasons: “international crime,” drugs, and “civic coexistence.”

The law was characterized by its harshness, its emphasis on conditions for entry, residence, and deportation, and control of the migrant population. It was “extremely weak” in terms of migrant rights,^[5] limiting those of assembly, association, and unionization—soon declared unconstitutional—, linking legal status to formal employment—leading to structural irregularity, especially in an economy with a vast informal sector—and to refraining from activities “contrary to public order” or “begging.” The LOEx thus already outlined the desired migrant subject: a productive individual without political rights, depoliticized, and neither “dangerous” nor “lumpen”. The logic was clear: a form of social engineering that was aware from the outset of the need to regulate the size of the surplus population and secure social peace. At the same time, the groundwork was laid for the police offensive against migrants. According to an official 1991 report, in those early years 20% of those arrested were migrants, despite making up less than 1% of the population.^[6]

The process enjoyed a relatively broad consensus, with few changes until 1991. Following a debate initiated by United Left (IU, a coalition led by the Communist Party of Spain, PCE)—which at the time called for prioritizing regularization over deportation—immigration policy began to be systematically developed and institutionalized throughout the decade, with various official plans, regulatory reforms, and new government agencies. In an attempt to address structural irregularity, mass amnesties were also implemented in 1986, 1991, and 1996, although they had limited success. Integration policies began to be developed, incorporating civil society actors directly.^[7] At the same time, border controls were tightened through the imposition of visa requirements and accession to the Schengen Agreement, while a “comprehensive approach” mediated by development aid to countries of origin emerged. A dual strategy was taking shape: integration inward, and border control outward.^[8]

All of this culminated, following another initiative by the IU, in Organic Law 4/2000 (LOEx 4/2000), which decoupled access to rights from immigration status and emphasized integration. Its sole opponent, the PP, criticized its excessive “permissiveness,” arguing that it would create a “pull factor” and inserting the issue for the first time into the electoral debate. After being re-elected with an absolute majority, the PP urgently passed a much more restrictive reform (LOEx 8/2000), which returned to the emphasis on control, increased deportation measures, introduced stricter entry and residency requirements, and once again linked access to rights to legal status.^[9] It also curtailed political rights such as the right to strike, unionize, associate, demonstrate, and assemble—a move that took years to be declared unconstitutional.

When the PSOE returned to power in 2004 with Zapatero, new regulations were drafted to solidify the previous inclusive measures, but the PP’s law was not amended, maintaining its restrictive foundations. Zapatero soon installed razor wire on the fences in Ceuta and Melilla. In 2005, it was revealed that Morocco was abandoning migrants in the desert, and the police killed eleven migrants at the fences, while the largest regularization in history was carried out to fuel the peak of the Spanish economic boom. In 2006, the PSOE responded to the “cayuco (dinghy) crisis” by expanding repressive measures: new detention centers, surveillance mechanisms (Frontex, SIVE), and border externalization agreements. In 2008, it approved the “Directive of Shame” in Europe, which Europeanized and expanded detention and deportation methods. In 2009, it introduced a more restrictive Asylum Law, which prohibited seeking asylum at Spanish embassies, and reformed the LOEx (2/2009), maintaining a control-oriented approach, extending detention, and linking permit renewals to discretionary assessments of one’s degree of integration. Shortly before, a leak had revealed that the police had “migrant arrest quotas” rewarded with paid time off.^[10]

II. From the 15M movement to Government

The post-15M^[11] period brought renewed pressure on the PSOE from the left. Although tangential to its overall populist strategy, Podemos’s early platforms (2014–15) introduced unprecedented immigration measures: ending detention centers, Frontex, SIVE, border externalization, the “Directive of Shame,” deportation ships and flights, “summary returns,” and other “human rights violations”; in addition to granting more political rights, the regularization of all people residing in Europe, more flexible entry and residency criteria, universal access to rights and services, and plans to combat institutional racism. The right quickly dismissed this as “open borders” and “papers for everyone.”

However, a new dynamic was emerging, which we can call “tip of the iceberg” logic: picking out high-profile issues that enter the political debate but obscure the structural reality of the phenomenon. During those years, these included “summary deportations” (following their legalization under the infamously repressive “Gag Law” and the 2014 Tarajal case), universal health coverage, and deaths at sea.^[12] In the summer of 2015, the “refugee crisis” began, garnering sympathy from a broad parliamentary consensus. Still not in parliament, Podemos framed the situation as a “humanitarian crisis” in need of more funding, calling for compliance with international law and the restoration of the right to seek asylum at embassies. Meanwhile, Ada Colau promoted a network of “refuge cities.” The main progressive slogan of those years was “Refugees Welcome,” with a moralistic emphasis and widespread social mobilization.

In 2016, the left failed to form a government, but immigration was not a point of disagreement. On the contrary. The PSOE, still in the opposition, foundering due to the rise of Podemos, and capitalizing on broad public support for refugees, maintained a highly critical stance toward European policy, adopting positions not so far from Podemos. Sánchez denounced the EU-Turkey readmission pact as an “agreement of shame” and proposed overhauling it entirely, ending summary deportations and the use of razor wire in border walls.

The immigration scandals of the following two years served to cement the PSOE’s leftist profile. A riot in a Madrid detention center in October 2016 led to a municipal motion demanding its closure, which the PSOE supported. In 2017, the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) ruled against Spain for summary deportations, a ruling celebrated by both the Socialists and Podemos.^[13] Both parties also criticized the management of an “illegal” detention center in Archidona, where Mohamed Bouderbala had died, although the PSOE did not support establishing a commission of inquiry into the incident. In 2018, Mame Mbayé died in Lavapiés at the hands of the police—something Pablo Iglesias described as “unacceptable in a democratic society.”

Days after taking office in 2018, Sánchez allowed the rescue ship Aquarius to dock in Spain after it had been turned away by Malta and Salvini’s Italy. Thus began a long series of grandiose symbolic performances against the national and international right. Podemos could only support the measure; international law was finally being upheld, they claimed. That same month, the Interior Minister Grande-Marlaska announced that he would remove the barbed-wire fences from Ceuta and Melilla. Meanwhile, immigration became heavily politicized: the PP criticized what it called “papers for all propaganda,” and Vox (far-right party) was on the verge of emerging on the national scene.

After the lucrative media spectacle, the PSOE returned to its old ways. As some experts concluded by late 2018: “Both PP and PSOE governments have implemented the same border policies. The difference lies in the form.”^[14] Soon after, the government announced that it would not withdraw a PP appeal to the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) regarding summary deportations—a practice it had promised to eliminate right up until its entry into government. Several such deportations took place that same summer. It took Marlaska less than a month to travel to Morocco to reinforce border externalization. Shortly thereafter, Sánchez restored access to healthcare for undocumented migrants, reversing a 2012 decision by Rajoy that had increased mortality rates among this group by 15%.^[15] But the measure was largely ineffective: many regions restricted access by requiring registration in the municipal census. The hope for real change in immigration policy was fading fast.

2019 was marked by elections, which resulted in the PSOE-Podemos coalition government. There were three significant immigration-related debates that, while fueled by the rise of Vox, were not decisive for the left. First, the demonization of migrant minors, which even led to armed attacks and the throwing of an (undetonated) grenade at a youth center in Madrid. The left warned against “hate speech,” differing only in degree. Second, the razor-wire fences in Ceuta and Melilla were removed—a move the PSOE and Podemos had championed. The result was “modernized” fences—more militarized and sophisticated—which failed to prevent subsequent massacres. Third, in a clear reversal from the Aquarius incident, the government blocked the departure of the rescue ships Open Arms and Aita Mari, threatening them with million-euro fines—a move that was celebrated by Salvini and criticized by Podemos.

III. First Coalition Government (2020–23)

According to the media, Podemos’s first battle within the coalition government was sparked by the PSOE’s hardening stance on immigration. The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) had upheld the appeal filed by the PP (which the PSOE had not withdrawn), thus endorsing summary deportations. Marlaska resumed deportations in the Canary Islands and began drafting a more restrictive Asylum Law “to bring it into line with the EU,” which he ultimately postponed due to tensions with Podemos, who demanded that human rights take precedence over security. The PSOE started taking on a more moderate profile. Gone were the progressive slogans, and its humanitarian rhetoric barely concealed its continuation of past policies.

During this period, Podemos’s efforts focused on trying to pressure Sánchez to uphold the positions the PSOE had taken while in the opposition—with little success. A routine of symbolic demarcation thus began, though it was constrained by the party’s presence in the government. Podemos continued to champion human rights and opposition to summary deportations, but in practice it allowed Marlaska’s position to prevail. This laid the groundwork for the model that would follow.

A few months later, Podemos brought the first legislative initiative from Regularización Ya (the migrant-led civil society group which led the effort for the recently achieved mass migrant amnesty) to the government, calling for an extraordinary regularization due to the pandemic, as had taken place in Portugal and Italy. Following the Socialists’ refusal (citing European regulations as an obstacle and arguing that there were better avenues), Podemos presented a bill that was rejected by Congress.^[16] Despite their differences, PSOE’s stance prevailed once again.

Toward the end of the year, the mid-pandemic abandonment of thousands of migrants on an overrun Canary Islands pier made international headlines. The PSOE clumsily attempted to defuse the crisis, while those to its left criticized it for creating a “prison island” and a “humanitarian emergency.” A few months later, in early 2021, following the admission of Sahrawi leader Brahim Ghali to a Spanish hospital, more than 10,000 people entered Ceuta from Morocco in less than 48 hours. Sánchez deployed the army with one hand and, with the other, appeased Morocco, who permitted summary deportations. Podemos responded with “letters” and “rebukes.” Meanwhile, the underlying problem—Morocco’s claim to Western Sahara—remained unresolved. Morocco continued to apply pressure, allowing spikes in arrivals to the Canary Islands and Melilla in 2022, which led the PSOE to accept the Moroccan claim in March 2022.^[17]

A few months earlier, in late 2021, Podemos reached an agreement with the PSOE to “repeal” the infamous Gag Law, but summary deportations were excluded. At around that time, a change to immigration regulation was also approved, being hailed then as the PSOE’s most significant immigration reform. It made it easier for unaccompanied underage migrants—who had previously become undocumented at age 18—to obtain legal status and work permits. Marlaska had blocked the measure using the right-wing argument of the “pull factor,” while Podemos took credit for having “forced his hand.”

These obstacles disappeared entirely in 2022 when the mass regularization and entry of Ukrainians was facilitated, with immediate work permits and asylum. This supremacist stance became evident when, just months later, the June 24 (24J) massacre occurred in Melilla, where more than one hundred Africans died or went missing.^[18] Life for some, death for others. Sánchez closed ranks with the Interior Ministry and police forces, describing the incident as “well resolved” and blaming the “mafias”—the ever-versatile scapegoat for border brutality. Later, the PSOE twice blocked a parliamentary inquiry proposed by its coalition partners in Congress, while allocating hundreds of millions of euros to Morocco to prevent a similar incident. Impunity at the border, once again.

Just days after the massacre, the so-called Zerolo Law was passed, establishing a series of anti-discrimination measures, including a ban on racial discrimination in housing and the condemnation of police racism (realities that, as we know, persist). Europe’s dual immigration strategy—border defense under penalty of death, liberal-progressive posturing at home—was captured in just six days.

In August, another new immigration regulation went into effect, facilitating pathways to regularization “to address the growing imbalances in the Spanish labor market and fill labor shortages,” per the government. Recruitment in countries of origin was expanded; a “regularization through vocational training” pathway was created, making it easier to regularize one’s status through training in sectors with high labor demand; foreign students were allowed to work; the duration of renewed permits was extended; and the requirements for hiring and family reunification were made more flexible. The Interior Ministry opposed the measures, again citing the “pull factor,” but the Inclusion Ministry, more attentive to the needs of employers, prevailed. Podemos barely intervened. Critical sectors of civil society labeled the reform “utilitarian” and “classist” for being geared toward covering the lowest rung of the labor market. Shortly thereafter, Yolanda Díaz (a Podemos leader and Minister of Labor, who went on to secede from Podemos and create Sumar, a “new Podemos” of sorts) approved the expansion of labor rights for domestic workers, a disproportionately migrant sector.

In December, Regularización Ya submitted more than 700,000 signatures to Congress for its Popular Legislative Initiative (ILP, which binds Congress to consider a citizen-drafted bill) for a mass migrant amnesty. It was soon put on hold by the call for early elections. In the two elections of 2023, positions on immigration did not change much. While the right radicalized its immigration agenda, the PSOE consolidated its moderate profile, emphasizing “regular and orderly” immigration and better “social and labor integration.” To its left, the newly formed Sumar party recycled old proposals from Podemos. In November, the new PSOE-Sumar coalition government was formed.

IV. Second Coalition Government (2023–27)

Despite Sumar’s renewed rhetorical radicalism, its governing pact with the PSOE made no mention of immigration.1818 It included only a commitment to work toward achieving a European Pact on Migration and Asylum (EPMA). Spain had assumed the EU presidency that summer and concluded it with what the PSOE called one of its greatest achievements: the EU-wide approval of the EPMA. The pact tightened border controls, included expedited deportations, restricted rights, and heralded what many called “the death of asylum.” In Europe, it was sold as a way to prevent the rise of the far right. For the PSOE, however, perhaps its most significant aspect was that it established “flexible solidarity” among member states, who could choose between refugee relocation quotas or paying frontline countries like Spain. Following the events in Ceuta in 2021, the 24J massacre in 2022, and the continued pressure from Morocco, it is likely that Sánchez wanted to avoid a “Spanish Lesbos” at all costs—a potential crisis on the scale of 2016 that, now centered on the western route, could destabilize his fragile domestic balance.

Thus began the “clashes” within the new coalition, refining the model initiated during 2020–23: a superficial staging of differences that does not go beyond headlines. After the EPMA was approved in December, Díaz barely acknowledged the “bad news,” while Sánchez defended it “tooth and nail.” Sumar did little more to stop it, beyond “not hiding” its differences (as a leader timidly stated), once again denouncing summary deportations with “horror” and calling for “urgent measures”, with no plan to demand or implement them.

In the spring of 2024, the consideration of the ILP was finally approved. Sumar promised he would pressure the PSOE—who continued to favor gradual regulatory reform to facilitate individual regularization—to prevent another deadlock. But it was deadlocked again during an amendment phase. Both Sumar and Podemos offered little more than verbal disagreements, while privately accepting its likely parliamentary unfeasibility. Echoing a shift in strategy at Regularización Ya, Podemos began calling for the issue to be resolved by decree. Thus began a new race of performative demarcation, this time from Sumar.

For the June 2024 EU elections, the gears of rhetorical radicalism were greased anew. Faced with a PSOE seeking to win back part of the electorate to its left, Sumar and Podemos used migration as a key issue to differentiate their leftist profile from the PSOE. Sumar chose the former director of CEAR (perhaps Spain’s leading pro-migration NGO) as its candidate, and now advocated for the repeal of the EPMA (“a direct threat to human rights”) and for ending border externalization agreements. Podemos repeated its old demands. The right gained ground, the PSOE held steady, and Sumar and Podemos barely survived, with Díaz resigning a few days later.

With the summer came a new political earthquake. Following a surge in arrivals in the Canary Islands, the PP agreed to a one-time redistribution of migrant minors from the archipelago to the mainland. Immediately, Vox broke off its five regional coalition governments with the PP, decisively taking charge of the right-wing anti-immigration milieu. Shortly thereafter, the PSOE government presented a reform of the LOEx to introduce mandatory redistribution among the autonomous communities. The PP now rejected the measure, disregarding its local chapters in the Canary Islands and Ceuta, and demanded that borders be reinforced, the Navy be deployed (an old Vox proposal), and a migration emergency be declared at the national level. The PP thus definitively made immigration the central focus of its opposition to the government, while Sánchez boasted of his progressive stance before civil society and the broader public.

Shortly thereafter, Sánchez traveled to Mauritania, Senegal, and The Gambia to solidify border externalization deals. He had already visited Mauritania in February with Von der Leyen—whose conservatism, in this case, was not an issue—promising 500 million euros in “aid” to prevent a surge of arrivals to the Canary Islands that fall. The leaders traveled on the same plane with high-ranking representatives of the Spanish bourgeoisie (the Fund for the Internationalization of Spanish Business, among others) to ensure the participation of Spanish capital in “development” projects. By July, a Spanish-Mauritanian Business Committee was set up. Above all, the priority was to prevent migrants from reaching European shores at all costs—to thus keep the crisis out of sight.

The deals materialized in circular migration and deportation agreements, training programs in sectors in demand by the Spanish labor market, project financing, and strengthened police cooperation (the Spanish government already has agents in these countries with their own land, sea, and air resources). In a supposed “shift,” Sánchez described the return of “irregulars” as “essential.” It is this that outraged Sumar, who accused him of buying into the right-wing narrative and advocated for a human rights-based policy—still with no plan to bring it about. Podemos then ramped up symbolic pressure, calling for the government to appear before a Congress inquiry to address migration. Sánchez had “buried the progressive legislature,” they argued. But in point of fact, nothing stood in the way of border externalization.

In September, the tragicomedy of the ILP was reignited; after months of being bogged down in amendments, it once again came to a standstill (due to the PSOE’s “lack of will,” according to its coalition partners). The focus then shifted to a new immigration regulation reform, approved in November 2024. Civil society once again branded it “utilitarian.” The reform had two aspects: (1) facilitating regularization to integrate migrants into the labor market, and (2) “safeguarding” the asylum process by separating it from other regularization procedures. For the first aspect, the reform reduced the required period of irregular residence to be eligible for papers, introduced a “second chance” regularization pathway, facilitated work- and family-based regularization procedures, and extended the duration of permit renewals. As for the second aspect, it established a complete incompatibility between asylum applications and residency permits, meaning that years spent in the country as an asylum seeker would no longer count to get non-asylum permits. The goal, driven by the Interior Ministry, was to prevent the “fraudulent use” of asylum to gain access to the labor market.

This created a new flaw in the system: those whose asylum applications were rejected (typically around 90%) would be forced into two years of undocumented status—and with it, job losses, bank account closures, housing difficulties, and work in the informal economy—until they could qualify for residency. Moreover, the new regulation effectively nullified the 2021 reform, which had facilitated the integration of young and underage migrants into the labor market.

The year came to a close with the announcement of a new, more restrictive Asylum Law, supposedly “imposed” by Europe, even though the European framework had been coordinated by the PSOE itself in 2023. Once again, in the name of “preventing fraud,” the proposal sought to introduce methods for “screening” applicants at the border, facilitate deportation, and introduce the concept of a “safe country” to deny applications en masse.

In March 2025, an agreement was finally reached on the LOEx reform regarding the distribution of migrant minors among regions. Podemos labeled the measure a “Band-Aid” for institutional racism, supporting it reluctantly. Meanwhile, another trivial political drama unfolded, this time over the transfer of immigration powers to Catalonia to maintain Junts’ (the main Catalan secessionist party) support for the government. The pressure of Aliança Catalana (a new far-right Catalan nationalist party) was making itself felt. Sumar supported the transfer but not the rationale behind it, and Podemos, in its umpteenth attempt to differentiate itself, called it “decentralizing racism.” The drama ended half a year later, with the agreement overturned in Congress by the PP, Vox, and Podemos.

Complaints about the new regulation soon began to pile up: “Business owners who rely most heavily on foreign labor can’t believe their eyes.” The phones were ringing off the hook at the president's residence, Moncloa: “There are constant calls from productive sectors complaining about a labor shortage.”^[19] And as if by magic, Sánchez began to treat every immigration measure as a priority and stepped on the gas to push through the mass migrant amnesty before summer. He had opposed it for years. But now, it would serve as a “clean-up operation” to correct the flaws in his own regulation and, as Regularización Ya said, “reset the counter [of undocumented people] to zero.” Votes in congress did not add up to pass it, despite ineffective pressure from Sumar and Podemos. The PSOE accused the PP of ignoring the requests of the Church and employers. By fall, the measure once again seemed impossible.

In July, the Torre Pacheco racial pogrom served as a convenient scandal for the entire parliamentary left, from Sánchez, who declared that “racism is incompatible with democracy,” to Podemos’s accusations of police negligence and Sumar’s initiative to investigate links between Vox and the pogrom.^[20] “Democratic firmness” in the face of “hatred.” A few months later, it was Sánchez who carried out the far-right’s plans: he opened two migrant prisons in Mauritania. In doing so, he overtook Meloni from her right. She had proposed the model of overseas detention centers with her attempt at an agreement with Albania. The revelation caused a minor stir on Sánchez’s left, who just “asked questions” and wrote letters.

In 2026, the mass migrant amnesty was finally approved, in what was a victory for the anti-racist movement and an important step toward the material unity of the working class. But it was also (1) the result of increasing employer demands, (2) a solution to the PSOE’s regulatory mistakes, and (3) part of an opportunistic political calculation. The financial press itself declared that the measure was more pragmatic than ideological, since “it benefits […] a business sector that has been grappling with a structural labor shortage for years. [Many sectors] have long been warning of the impossibility of filling vacancies through ordinary channels.”^[21] The measure also served as a final patch for the imbalance caused by the attempt to completely separate asylum and residency. Finally, it stemmed from “a political calculation in a context of waning support for the government and the reconfiguration of the electoral landscape.”^[22] It is unlikely that the measure would have passed without these conditions coming together.

In March, the government closed the migrant exclusion loophole in its 2018 universal healthcare decree—eight years later. That same month, Serigne Mbayé was arrested, in what shaped up to be a political attack against the entire racialized proletariat, intended to intimidate one of its most visible leaders. Podemos quickly used this to lash out at the government and demand measures against police racism, which the PSOE vetoed. As always, Sánchez prevailed.

The Structural Limits of Social Democracy

Three phases can be distinguished in the evolution of Spain’s immigration regime: a first phase (1985–99) of slow alignment with Northern European frameworks, a second phase (2000–15) of maturation and consolidation of a certain independent direction, and a final phase (2015–26) characterized by the post-15M cycle shift.

Before examining the role of social democracy in each phase, it is important to note the general trend toward phasing out the mechanism of recurring mass migrant amnesties in the first two decades, replacing it with the predominance of individual regularization mechanisms based on length of residence. This reveals a maturing of bourgeois immigration policy. While the first approach causes social upheaval and bureaucratic overload, dangerously politicizes the issue, and angers Europe, the second proceeds practically unnoticed, in a depoliticized manner acceptable to Brussels, Paris, or Berlin. It also achieves something extremely useful, which the previous practice had only spasmodically addressed: a mechanism of semi-automatic adjustment of the reserve army of labor to the needs of the labor market.

Throughout all these phases, social democracy—whether moderate (PSOE) or radical (IU, Podemos, Sumar)—has played a specific role. In the first two phases, the PSOE was the main actor in building the institutional foundations of state migration policy, adopting and internalizing the EU frameworks. IU, in turn, acted as a catalyst for universalist reforms aimed at achieving the most basic equality under bourgeois law. Although important, these reforms ultimately assimilate into the general European dynamic: the dual strategy of (1) the relative granting of rights at the domestic level—albeit always partial and hollowed out, yet necessary to alleviate domestic tensions, maintain a certain degree of liberal legitimacy, and avoid a direct break with bourgeois constitutionality—and (2) increasingly strict border control. In general, this dual strategy has been the preferred approach of the Western bourgeoisie, as it is effective in preserving the internal liberal facade while restricting the access of peripheral proletariats to the superior living conditions of the North, thereby safeguarding its model of social peace. Despite its progressive appearances, then, this dual strategy reinforces the position of the imperial bourgeoisie.

In the third phase (2015-2026), the party landscape is restructured, and the discourse is renewed in a more radical direction, although it runs up against the hard limits of what is possible under the bourgeois regime. Let’s go step by step. During this period, the PSOE quickly shifts from an initial, superficial combativeness to a policy of continuity cloaked in its social-liberal brand and a positive discourse on immigration. It clearly follows the dual strategy of European liberalism—integration inward, closure outward—despite doing so at a time of clear historical regression in the first pillar of the model. In doing so, however, it channels the needs of employers, seeks to optimize labor market management, and pacifies a mobilized civil society.

That said, since coming to power, social-democratic immigration policy has increasingly focused on preventing crises, above and beyond any ideological considerations. The maneuvers to prevent large migrant arrival buildups in the Canary Islands, Ceuta, or Melilla; the drastic increase in “aid” to Morocco following the 24J massacre; the effort to approve the EPMA; and preventive strategies such as the Africa Tour all stem from an attempt to avert media crises, which risk contradicting the supposed social-democratic commitment to human rights (from its left) and its credibility (from its right). The key is to maintain this fragile balance to preserve the liberal façade, on which social democracy depends more than anyone else.^[23]

But the adoption of this dual strategy leads to another uncomfortable reality: that social-democratic border policies end up differing little from those of the far right, as demonstrated by the fact that Sánchez achieved Meloni’s long-standing goal—detention centers in non-EU countries—before she did. This similarity is explained by Europe’s structural insertion in the world-system, which limits the range of policy options for anyone seeking to maintain certain social relations. The social peace championed by the postwar European bourgeois state depends on the stratification of the global proletariat, and therefore requires border control to ensure it. Subjective attitudes and rhetoric toward migration may vary, but as long as this imperial foundation remains unchallenged, this reality is insurmountable. How else can we explain that Sánchez’s borders kill more people than Meloni’s?

To the left of the PSOE, the various formations of radical social democracy take on a different role. Several points are worth noting. First, the use of the “tips of the iceberg” tactic as a substitute for structural analysis. These are used in an almost purely agitational manner, without reference to a broader framework. For example: criticizing “summary deportations” does not challenge the general deportability of the migrant proletariat. It expresses the moral outrage of humanitarianism at the border and seeks to prevent repetition of what outraged the European liberal—not the structural mechanism itself. The same applies, for example, with the fixation on events like the Tarajal or the 24J massacres, rather than the daily trickle of deaths at sea or in the desert. Spectacle takes precedence over analysis, and in doing so, the goal is diluted. You can’t see the forest for the trees when it is the forest that needs to be analyzed.

Another key element of the social-democratic approach is its political framework, which—from IU in 1991 to Podemos in 2026—has relied on the same principles: human rights, international law, humanitarianism, democratic values, “hate speech,” and even “cruelty.” As a result, all of capital’s offensives against the migrant proletariat are recorded as “anomalies” of the bourgeois order, which supposedly, at some hypothetical point in time, would have respected nonwhite life. This reinforces the liberal framework and subsumes all criticism under the ideal of a “democracy” that can be salvaged, rather than understanding the constant aggression as inherent to capital accumulation and its bourgeois political expression. In fact, it is revealing that the radical limit of the social-democratic horizon is the repeal of the LOEx. Not because of its vagueness, but because it locates the problem in one law of the bourgeois order rather than in the bourgeois and neocolonial order as a whole.^[24]

On the other hand, at the practical level, the strategy of radical social democracy has simply been ineffective. Successful immigration measures have all emerged from the ultimate will of the PSOE, which has often even outpaced its partners in certain areas. Moderate social democracy, therefore, has continued to implement the imperialist bloc’s overall project regarding the management of the global class structure. It has accompanied this with what today seems anachronistic, rebellious, or exceptional: a certain relaxation of the internal immigration regime.^[25] This is explained not by a concern for migrants’ rights, but by the economic bet on a growth model based on immigration.

As for radical social democracy, there has been much talk and few results. The mass amnesty is, perhaps, “its” greatest achievement, although very little of it really depended on it. Beyond that, it has helped maintain Sánchez’s chameleon-like progressive image, indirectly contributing to the shaping of his public profile at the national and international levels. Meanwhile, the relative relaxation of the domestic immigration regime—which is more the work of the PSOE than its coalition partners—has only been a matter of degree, preserving the system’s hard core and the ethno-stratifying pattern that fuels capital accumulation. Meanwhile, radical social democracy de facto allowed certain regressive measures to pass (above all, in border control), thus paving the way for imperialism’s immigration agenda. It has thus served as the left wing of capital, legitimizing a project that does not differ in essence from that of the increasingly reactionary continental bourgeoisie.

The key here is the tacit complicity with imperialism, written into the DNA of the bourgeois state. For it is imperialism, through the underdevelopment it imposes on the peripheries, that prevents the South from creating self-sustaining economies capable of absorbing its population into the wage sector after the gradual destruction of their previous ways of life. It is imperialism that imposes an international division of labor that produces disarticulated peripheral economies, orienting them toward the needs of the center rather than their own.^[26] This disarticulation prevents complete proletarianization, creating situations in which either there is not enough work or wages do not cover reproductive needs.^[27] This leads to the secular growth of people “outside the labor force,” the “massive expansion of labor reserves,” and a sustained socio-reproductive crisis.^[28] Emigration pressure, therefore, is structural. Meanwhile, in the West, the neocolonial pact—the secret behind bourgeois social peace and its delocalized mode of accumulation—requires limiting peripheral mobility and access to the superior living conditions of the West. For its bourgeoisie, strict border control is not an option.

Therefore, however much “pushbacks” are prohibited, or mass amnesties carried out, these systemic dynamics do not change. Without a real anti-imperialist strategy aimed at transforming social relations on a world scale, people will continue to migrate to Europe, and Europe will continue to kill, persecute, or exploit them. In the Second International, social democracy betrayed the peoples of the world and embraced chauvinism. Today, whether radical or moderate, it does the same. By displacing imperialism from its analysis and immigration policy, by choosing time and again not to break with the bourgeois migratory project, and by reducing its critique to the rhetoric of the enemy, it does nothing but reproduce the conditions of the problem, transform anger into defeat, and repeat history not as tragedy, but as farce.

Immigration is the internal expression of imperialism. Migrant life, like the life of the majorities in the Global South, is antagonistic to the West’s neocolonial project. Assata Shakur said that as long as imperialism exists, racism will persist. Class unity is the political commitment to the systematic destruction of both.

1. Amo-Agyei, S. (2020), “The migrant pay gap,” International Labor Organization, p. 138. https://www.ilo.org/sites/default/files/wcmsp5/groups/public/@ed_protect/@protrav/@migrant/documents/publication/wcms_763803.pdf

   ↩

2. For a further elaboration of this argument, see Suárez, I. (2025), “The Migrant Genocide: Toward a Third World Analysis of European Class Struggle.” Monthly Review Online. https://mronline.org/2025/06/18/the-migrant-genocide-toward-a-third-world-analysis-of-european-class-struggle/

   ↩

3. Smith, J. (2016), Imperialism in the twenty-first century. Monthly Review Press. See also Hickel, J. et al. (2024), «Unequal exchange of labour in the world economy». Nature communications, 15 (1).

   ↩

4. Aguiriano, M. (2025), «Un nuevo ciclo revolucionario», Nuevo Ciclo 1.

   ↩

5. Ortega Pérez, N. (2003), “Spain: Forging an immigration policy.” Migration Policy Institute

   ↩

6. Santi, S. (2018), «The construction of the Spanish immigration policy: Ideas, legislation and discourses from 1969 to 1996». Oñati Socio-Legal Series, 8 (7).

   ↩

7. Veredas Muñoz, S. (2003), «Las asociaciones de inmigrantes en España. Práctica clientelar y cooptación política». Revista internacional de sociología, 61 (36).

   ↩

8. This strategy has been Europe’s general approach since it began receiving peripheral immigration in the postwar period. It dates back to the early milestones of British social democracy. See Chin, R. (2017), The Crisis of Multiculturalism in Europe: A History. Princeton University Press.

   ↩

9. Kreienbrink, A. (2008), España, país de inmigración: evolución política entre europeización e intereses nacionales. Ministerio de Trabajo e Inmigración. All of this took place against the backdrop of the racist pogrom in El Ejido and the intense wave of mobilization by undocumented immigrants in 2001, who occupied dozens of churches and buildings throughout the country. Suárez-Navaz et al. (2008), Las luchas de los sin papeles. Traficantes de Sueños.

   ↩

10. Sainz, P. (2018), «El PSOE y sus políticas migratorias: esa vieja costumbre de encerrar». El Salto.

    ↩

11. The Indignados, or 15M movement, was the Spanish equivalent of Occupy Wall Street in the United States. Besides being the most momentous social eruption of the entire post-Francoist period, it permanently altered the political party system in Spain, undoing the PP-PSOE duopoly and being the harbinger of the new political parties, beginning with Podemos.

    ↩

12. Garcés, B. (2016), «Fuera de campaña electoral: devoluciones en caliente, refugiados e inmigrantes irregulares». Anuario CIDOB de la Inmigración.

    ↩

13. CEAR. (2025), «Caso Tarajal: 14 muertes y 11 años de impunidad».

    ↩

14. Amat, D. y Garcés, B. (2018), «Politicisation of immigration in Spain: an exceptional case?» CEASEVAL (14)

    ↩

15. Hierro, L. (2018), «La mortalidad entre sin papeles sube un 15% desde la reforma sanitaria». El País

    ↩

16. López-Sala, A. (2021). «Luchando por sus derechos en tiempos de covid-19. Resistencias y reclamaciones de regularización de los migrantes Sinpapeles en España». REMHU, 29 (61)

    ↩

17. Bourekba, M., et al. (2023), “Migration narratives in media and social media: the case of Spain.” BRIDGES Working Papers.

    ↩

18. «Masacre de Melilla: tres años de impunidad». CEAR, 2025.

    ↩

19. Martín, M. (2025), «El Gobierno apuesta ahora por la regularización extraordinaria de cientos de miles de inmigrantes», El País.

    ↩

20. Days before the pogrom, Vox openly advocated for internal ethnic cleansing, calling for the deportation of eight million people—migrants or those of migrant origin. They said: “There is only one bad solution and one less bad solution, and therefore, all these millions of people […] will have to return to their countries." It is worth recalling that the Nazi regime in Germany sought to deport Jews (the “less bad solution”) before deciding to murder them (the “bad solution”). González, M. (2025), «Vox defiende abiertamente deportar a ocho millones de inmigrantes y a sus hijos», El País

    ↩

21. Garicano. A. (2026), «Regulación extraordinaria masiva en España: ¿por qué ahora?», Expansión.

    ↩

22. Aatar, F. (2026), «Luces y sombras de la regularización», Contracultura

    ↩

23. The obsession with avoiding border crises—essential for preserving the liberal façade—is merely a patch that attempts to postpone reality: the crisis of the imperialist arrangement. The intensification of socio-ecological crises in the peripheries promises new and greater “Lesbos” in the future.

    ↩

24. Podemos has at times adopted this slogan, depending on its position in government. But would the EU tolerate a repeal of the LOEx? No. Social-democratic loyalty to the bourgeois state and its European project here betrays its supposed radicalism.

    ↩

25. It is important to note that formal reforms do not prevent informal mechanisms of stratification from flourishing. Informality is the way in which forms of racial stratification are updated to a period of relative formal equality. In other words, it is the specifically neocolonial modus operandi for managing social relations following the global delegitimization of racism. For a brief current case study, see Suárez, I. (2026), “De padrón y lucha de clases,” El Salto. For further details, see Pérez, M. et al. (2019), “Fronteras interiores: las prácticas informales en el gobierno de la desigualdad en España.” Revista CIDOB, p. 122.

    ↩

26. Amin, S. (1974), Accumulation on a World Scale. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI.

    ↩

27. These needs are thus ultimately met by a feminized subsistence economy based on limited access to land, informal subsistence work, and unpaid domestic labor, which subsidizes global accumulation.

    ↩

28. Prasad, A., and Yeros, P. (2024), “Patriarchy and the Contradictions of Late Neocolonialism,” in Tsikata, D., Prasad, A., and Yeros, P. (eds.), Gender in Agrarian Transitions. Tulika.

    ↩