Vox's attempt to incorporate the fight against irregular immigration into the express missions of the Armed Forces has met this Tuesday with the rejection of PSOE, Sumar, PNV, ERC, Podemos and BNG. The formal vote will take place this Wednesday, although the positions announced during the debate leave the bill without the necessary majority to continue its parliamentary journey.
The Popular Party has decided to support the consideration to introduce amendments during a hypothetical processing. The 'populares' share the participation of the military in border control and want to grant them the status of agents of authority, with the capacity to make arrests, although these powers do not appear in the articles presented by the far-right Vox.
The initiative was registered by Santiago Abascal's party in October 2023 and modifies the Organic Law of National Defense. Its main change fits in four words. Vox intends to add "and illegal immigration" to the section that allows the Armed Forces to collaborate with the State Security Forces and Corps in the fight against terrorism.
The text also introduces irregular immigration in the preamble of the law as one of the risks to peace, stability and security. Its explanatory statement speaks of a "first-order threat", presents migratory movements as part of possible destabilization strategies and describes as "invasion" the entry of some 10,000 people into Ceuta during May 2021.
Vox demands a permanent Army in Ceuta and Melilla
Vox deputy José María Sánchez García has argued from the rostrum that Ceuta and Melilla suffer a "chronic and permanent" problem due to their geographical location. Based on this diagnosis, he has demanded a stable presence of the Army at the borders of the two autonomous cities.
"That permanence of the problem would also justify a permanence in the solution," he said. Vox believes that the military deployment would allow containing and deterring irregular entries, especially after the crisis experienced in Ceuta at the end of July.
The most direct response has come from the PSOE. José Antonio Rodríguez Salas has recalled that current legislation already allows resorting to the Armed Forces to defend Spanish sovereignty, intervene in situations of serious risk and respond to an external aggression.
The socialist deputy has admitted that a State can instrumentalize migratory movements to pressure another country. In that case, Spain has diplomatic, police, economic, European, and intelligence resources, in addition to military intervention when circumstances require it. "You can defend border control without militarizing migration policy," he defended.
Sumar has announced an "emphatically" negative vote. Its deputy Txema Guijarro has called the initiative "opportunistic" and has reproached Vox for placing irregular immigration "in the same normative space as terrorism." He has also warned that the instrumentalization of a migratory flow by another State does not automatically turn people crossing the border into a military threat.
The PNV also does not consider the reform necessary. Mikel Legarda has explained that the Armed Forces can already intervene in a hybrid operation promoted from abroad, while the ordinary control of migratory movements corresponds to the police forces. "They are not interchangeable services or functions," he stressed.
From ERC, Francesc-Marc Álvaro has described the proposition as "opportunistic, populist, and demagogic." The deputy has accused Vox of mixing immigration, Islamism, and terrorism and has warned the PP of the risk of ending up assuming the far-right's "racist reactionary framework."
Podemos has further hardened the criticism. Javier Sánchez Serna has denounced that the reform aims to equate immigration and terrorism and turn migrants into a "military target." BNG deputy Néstor Rego has placed the proposal within a strategy of "militarization of society" based on relating migration, crime, and insecurity.
The PP supports the processing to change the text
The popular spokesperson in the Mixed Commission of National Security, Rafael Hernando, has justified the PP's support by the possibility of modifying the proposition during its passage through the Cortes. "We are going to support it in order to amend it," he announced.
The PP wants to take advantage of the reform to grant legal protection to soldiers deployed at the borders and allow them to intervene directly in certain entries. This claim would require expanding the Vox text, which only includes the support of the Armed Forces for the Police and does not regulate arrests or attribute new powers as agents of authority.
Hernando has also brought to the chamber the language used by his party since the massive entry in July. He has assured that in Ceuta there was a "consented invasion instrumentalized by Morocco" and has accused Rabat of using its own citizens as "cannon fodder" in a "hybrid war" operation against Spanish sovereignty and the southern border of the European Union.
The consideration will reach the voting stage this Wednesday with the announced support of PP and Vox and the rejection of the Government's main partners, the nationalist groups and Podemos. Junts and EH Bildu have not intervened in the debate.
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