The top of the PP list for Barcelona, Xavier García Albiol, has demanded that the Navy be deployed in the border area with the international waters of the Canary Islands, specifically at the height of the island of El Hierro, in order to control the "mother ships that are bringing, that are dragging the dinghies that form part of mafias" dedicated to the transfer of irregular immigration to Spain.
At an event held this Sunday in the neighborhood of Mas Pellicer, in Reus (Tarragona), he criticized that "The only immigration policy of the Government of Spain is the policy of welcoming these people and making them feel welcome."
Albiol has said that in the last two days more than 4,000 people would have arrived irregularly to El Hierro, and he has insisted that the intervention of the Navy must take place regardless of the possible launch of Frontex.
"A very serious problem" in migration management
"If this keeps going like this, there will be a very serious problem," he warned, by arguing that Spain lacks the capacity to host all the immigrants who have entered in the last few days, contrary to the view that, according to him, the Government and left-wing parties maintain.
In his view, "it is impossible. It can’t be done by the Canary Islands, it can’t be done by the rest of the autonomous communities and, evidently, Catalonia either," and he has therefore defended the need to adopt firm measures to deal with the situation.
Reference to the Mas Pellicer neighborhood and the occupations
During his speech, the popular party leader referred to the Mas Pellicer neighborhood, the setting of the event, where he said that "there is an important part of people who have moved in, who have occupied homes" with total impunity, according to his assessment.
He has underlined that "Of every 10 occupations that occur across all of Spain, 4 occur in Catalonia," and he has warned that, in his opinion, most of those who occupy properties generate conflicts, whether they are immigrants or whether they have Spanish nationality.
Faced with this situation, he has defended that the PP knows how to "perfectly differentiate" between those who cannot cope with paying rent or the mortgage and are going through "a social problem" and those, on the contrary, who dedicate themselves to occupying homes as a way of life or who are part of "mafias of illegal squatting," he said.
In the latter case, he has stressed that "These require a forceful response and require an immediate judicial response. And this is our objective."