Podemos has celebrated the extraordinary regularization of irregular immigrants approved by the Government as a "victory" and has gone a step further by announcing its intention to facilitate their access to the right to vote, either through naturalization or by modifying the electoral law. A discourse that, according to its critics, adopts without nuance the false framework of demographic "replacement," common in the populist and far-right rhetoric represented by Vox.
This was stated by the MEP and political secretary of the purple party, Irene Montero, during a rally held this Saturday in Zaragoza, in the midst of the 8F election campaign. "Hopefully, we can sweep this country of fascists and racists with migrant people, with working people," she proclaimed, in a speech in which she openly defended what she called a political and social "replacement."
Montero shared the event with the Secretary General of Podemos, Ione Belarra; the candidate for the Presidency of Aragon, María Goikoetxea; the lead candidate for Huesca, José Ángel Pérez Marcuello; the federal coordinator of Alianza Verde, Juantxo López de Uralde; and the journalist Laura Arroyo. The purple leader insisted that regularization is not "a gift" but "a pending debt," under the slogan that "papers are rights" and that "no human being is illegal." In that context, she contrasted this idea with alleged cases of corruption and privileges linked to the right and Vox, whom she accused of illicit behavior and of living "off others."
During her speech, Montero explicitly asked "migrant and racialized people" not to "leave us alone with so many fascists" and expressed her support for what she called "the replacement of fascists, racists, and freeloaders" with "working people," regardless of their origin or skin color. The MEP also alluded to the fear that, she stated, undocumented immigrants suffer in both the United States and Spain, and harshly criticized Vox and its leader, Santiago Abascal, to whom she directed personal insults and accused of representing a privileged elite who, in her opinion, exploits identity politics while criticizing social benefits.