Does Vox intend to expel 8 million immigrants? What Rocío de Meer said

In recent hours, some media outlets have claimed that Vox intends to expel 8 million immigrants living in Spain.

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One of the first media outlets to report this figure was the newspaper El País, which stated: "Vox openly defends deporting eight million immigrants and their children". The PRISA group newspaper quotes these words, which were reportedly spoken by Vox MP Rocío de Meer yesterday at a press conference held by that party at its headquarters:

"If of the 47 million inhabitants of our country, more or less seven, or more than seven, because we have to take into account the second generation, eight million are people who have come from different origins in a very short period of time, therefore, it is extraordinarily difficult for them to adapt to our ways and customs."

El País adds the following words from Rocío de Meer: "There is only one bad solution and one less bad solution, and therefore, all these millions of people who have recently come to our country and have not adapted to our customs and in many cases have caused scenes of insecurity in our neighborhoods and surrounding areas, will have to return to their countries."

In response to the news published by El País and other media outlets to the same effect, this morning at 10:02 CET, Rocío de Meer posted on her Twitter account: "LIE! I didn't say that 8 million people had to be expelled. We have to expel as many as necessary so that not one more Spanish family has to cry about not having done it." From its national account on that social network, Vox has also described the statements of those media outlets as a "lie", and the newspaper The digital newspaper published by the Vox foundation, La Gaceta, has accused El País and other media outlets of publishing a "hoax", including elDiario.es in the list of media outlets.

There's something strange about all this. Yesterday afternoon, at 8:19 PM CET, Rocío de Meer commented with a simple "Yes" on the elDiario.es news story that La Gaceta today called a "hoax":

The news from the aforementioned media outlet (an automatic copy made on July 7 can be seen here, that is, the version commented on by the deputy with a "Yes") had this title: "Vox openly proposes a “process” of “massive” expulsion of migrants. The text of the news included the same words of Rocío de Meer that were quoted by the newspaper El País. The logical question is: Did Rocío de Meer say those words?

Answering that question is very easy. The video of the press conference can be seen here. Rocío de Meer's words quoted by El País can be heard starting at 29:17 in the video. I've embedded it here so it starts playing at that point in the press conference (the video is in Spanish, you can activate automatic English subtitles in the bottom bar of the player):

Thus, Rocío de Meer was the one who indicated the figure of 8 million immigrants, expressly citing the "second generation" (that is, her children born in Spain) stating that "it is extraordinarily difficult for them to adapt to our ways and customs", to then say that "all these millions of people who have come to our country very recently and have not adapted to our customs", according to her, "will have to return to their countries". Something that the Vox deputy described as a "remigration process".

From this blog, and for years, I have denounced many media hoaxes against Vox, news that were clearly false and loaded with malicious intent, with the obvious purpose of harming that party. However, in this case, El País has pointed out what Rocío de Meer said, something that anyone can hear in that video. One might think that the outlet jumped to a conclusion, but that conclusion was easily deducible from the MP's words.

Personally, I think it's good that Vox has taken a step back, because suggesting the expulsion of 8 million immigrants from Spain, as Rocío de Meer did yesterday, is nonsense. Nonsense that, furthermore, forgets the distinction that Vox has always made between legal and illegal immigration, and between legal immigrants who lead an honorable life and those who commit crimes. Let's keep in mind that there are 7,287,018 legal foreign residents in Spain with a valid registration certificate or residence card, according to official immigration figures published by the government. The figure indicated by Rocío de Meer would imply expelling all foreigners from Spain, appealing to a criterion as difficult to determine as that they have not been able to "adapt to our ways and customs," something that in many cases is not true.

Considering what I've just reviewed, I think what happened yesterday was a communication error, a blunder. It's not the first such mistake Vox has made, and it won't be the last. The same thing happens to all political parties. Nobody is perfect: it's human to make mistakes, and it's wise to recognize and rectify them. I know that political parties are reluctant to admit mistakes, perhaps for fear that their rivals will profit from it, but what's not right is accusing the media of publishing a "hoax" for reflecting something that, as we can see, corresponds to what that MP said.

I know what I'm risking by publishing this, because in Spain distancing oneself from the discourse of a political party is becoming a risky practice, but I've been publishing this independent blog for almost 21 years and remembering that one of its principles is the defense of the truth, even if it's not always pleasant. In defending the truth, I've had to endure all kinds of very difficult situations, but if we let the truth be buried under a tangle of fears and interests, then how do we differentiate ourselves from our rivals?