Vox accuses Morocco of exporting criminals to Spain

The Spanish Vox organization raised an alert in connection with the decision of the king of Morocco, Mohamed VI, to massively pardon nearly 20,000 prisoners. According to organization leader Santiago Abascala, Morocco does not enjoy the right of grace, but systematically clears its prisons from criminals, hoping that any of them will penetrate Europe, especially Spain. Vox claims that we are dealing with a "export of crime", which is the victim of Spanish citizens.

The mass indult included 19,673 people, including over 100 sentenced to life imprisonment and 23 people who were originally sentenced to death. Vox recalls that Morocco has already applied akin decisions in the past – since 2019 the number of pardoned has exceeded 37,000. From the point of view of the Abascala party, the problem is not the act of grace itself, but the deficiency of any control over what happens to these people later. Vox claims that any of them go on illegal migration routes, and since the border in Ceuta and Melilla is sometimes hollow, any of them penetrate Spain, where they gain immigrant position without documents.

Although the organization has not given concrete data or examples, its claims are based on erstwhile incidents – among another things, the situation of 2021, erstwhile Morocco loosened border control in Ceuta and in a fewer twelve hours about 8,000 people were sent to the Spanish enclave. Vox sees this as a precedent that shows that Morocco treats the border with the European Union not as a shared responsibility, but as a political lever that it can usage as shortly as it finds it beneficial.

One of Vox's fresh speeches in Congress, which said:

“Morocco emptys his prisons from criminals, and PP and PSOE accept them with open arms. They not only let them in – they distribute them across the country for our money."

These words contain the full Vox strategy: combine the criticism of migration policy with the attack on the main political forces. The organization argues that both the centre-right People's organization (Partido Popular) and the ruling socialists of PSOE have no safety plan, and their border policy consists of passiveness and dependence on the confederate neighbor's will.

These allegations are peculiarly powerful as they appear in the electoral context. Vox has been building his position for months as a organization of "last resistance" against migration chaos and insecurity. Politicians of this formation present themselves as the only ones who tell the fact about what happens at borders and in cities – and what they think is besides happening in prisons.

Background and political temperature

Morocco does not comment on accusations coming from Spain, treating them as an interior political game. However, mass pardons, even if they are a regular symbolic gesture, can have real effects. The problem is that there is no public database that allows us to follow the further fates of the pardoned. It is not known how many of them actually left Morocco and tried to get to Europe. Even little is known how many could have been found in Spain.

The Spanish safety services have not issued any communication that would confirm or deny Vox's claims. The silence of the state institutions only fuels the political message of the Abascala organization – as 1 that speaks of facts that “others are silent”. Vox plays a well-known card here: external threat, elite incompetence, the request for decisive leadership. The threat is not only theoretical – Vox reminds of pardons for those convicted of terrorism. In total, according to their data, it was at least 66 people since 2019. This is not just a substance of common crime, but a possible threat to national security.

A fresh poll appeared in this political climate, which seems to confirm the effectiveness of Vox rhetoric. According to a survey published by the Electomanía portal on 27 July, Vox has a crucial increase in support. It gains more than 1.3 percent points per month, reaching 16.7% per country. This is the best score of the organization since early 2024. At the same time, Partido Popular, despite many campaigns and speeches by the leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, cannot break the stagnation and does not recover the lost area. For Vox, this poll is simply a signal that their transmission line – tough, confrontational, nationalistic – finds audiences and that the subject of migration can be a turning point in the fight for opposition leader position.

The survey besides shows that the debate on safety and migration can become the main subject of the following months. While PSOE continues to keep unchangeable support within 30%, tensions related to borders, interior safety and the housing crisis can make groups specified as Vox increasingly seen as an alternate to tired voters.

If the rhetoric about "exporting criminals" receives further confirmations (although through individual incidents involving migrants) Vox can turn this communicative into electoral capital. However, it may well be costed if it is found that his claims were exaggerated or unsupported by evidence. But politics is not always about facts – frequently about impressions. And the impression that Vox is trying to build now is clear: Morocco is letting criminals go free, and the Spanish state is not stopping them. For those who are tired of uncertainty, costly and deficiency of control, this may be adequate to vote again differently than before.