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Vox wants to deport all foreigners in Spain... even the legal ones
The far-right party has proposed mass deportations in an unprecedented anti-migrant policy that is actually incompatible with Spanish law, international law and the law of physics
In an alarming escalation of anti-migrant rhetoric, Spain’s far-right Vox party has proposed the mass deportation of millions of foreign residents, regardless of their legal status. The announcement came during a press conference on Monday July 7, in which Vox MP Rocío de Meer claimed that “all these millions of people will have to return to their countries” if her party came to power.
The statement followed the party’s response to a rape case in Alcalá de Henares involving a young man from Mali. Vox used the case to call for broad immigration crackdowns, transforming an isolated incident into the basis for a sweeping political proposal.
However, in true inflationary fashion, de Meer’s speech raised the figure of foreigners in Spain to eight million, painting them as culturally incompatible with “Spanish ways and customs”.
Yet data from the National Institute of Statistics (INE) puts the number of foreign-born residents at about 6.9 million. Of these, 3.7 million are EU citizens who enjoy freedom of movement and cannot legally be deported under EU law.
Crucially, Vox made no distinction between legal residents, Spanish citizens of foreign origin and or those without documentation. Their narrative targets those from the Netherlands, the UK, Senegal and Bolivia equally, regardless of whether they hold a Spanish passport or have been living in Spain for decades.
Vox’s proposal is not just controversial and physically impossible, it is legally unworkable. Under both Spanish and European law, collective deportations are strictly prohibited.
‘Return decisions’, the legal term for expulsions, must be carried out individually, with due process guaranteed for each case.
Article 4 of Protocol 4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which Spain is bound by, explicitly forbids mass expulsions. Spain would have to withdraw from the EU, the Council of Europe and various international treaties to implement such a policy.
That would mean rewriting parts of the Constitution, the Civil Code and immigration regulations, a move legal experts say is politically and practically unfeasible.
“International Human Rights Law protects people who have established roots in the country,” says Adilia de las Mercedes, director of the human rights law firm DEMOS. “Expelling someone who has social, family or professional ties here would violate their right to private and family life, which is protected under Article 8 of the European Convention.”
Theoretically, even migrants with residence permits or Spanish nationality could fall under Vox’s proposed policy. But according to current law, residents with ties to Spain – whether through work, education, family or community involvement – have protected rights.
For example, migrants from regions like Mali or Burkina Faso are often granted protection under the principle of non-refoulement, which forbids returning people to places where their lives may be in danger.
“Spanish courts and international law guarantee the right to stay for those from areas controlled by armed groups,” says immigration lawyer Javier Moreno.
While in a follow-up speech this Tuesday Vox leader Santiago Abascal avoided specifying numbers, the party’s rhetoric mirrors far-right movements elsewhere in Europe.
The idea of ‘remigration’ – forcibly returning non-European migrants – has been borrowed from German extremists. The wider narrative reflects the ‘great replacement’ theory, which claims that European populations are being deliberately replaced by immigrants, especially Muslims and Africans.
These conspiracy theories, while discredited, are gaining traction across far-right circles in Europe. Their use in Spain marks a dangerous shift in public discourse.
According to De las Mercedes, the rhetoric walks a fine line between free speech and hate speech. “When a group is criminalised, blamed for the country’s problems, and then presented as a threat to racial purity, we’re not far from the definition of a hate crime,” she warns.
For the time being, legal protections remain firmly in place. Spain is a democracy with strong ties to international human rights frameworks. No policy like the one Vox is proposing could be implemented without dismantling decades of legal and constitutional commitments.
However, the rise in hostile political rhetoric can still have real-world effects, from increased social tension to the normalisation of xenophobia in public life.
If you are a legal foreign resident in Spain and hold either a residence permit, EU citizenship or Spanish nationality, there is currently no legal mechanism that would allow your expulsion based on your country of origin.
Spain’s strength lies in its diversity and in the legal principles that uphold individual rights, regardless of nationality. Vox’s proposal may be loud, but it remains just that: a proposal, not the law.
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