While it is commonly assumed that the way societies manage immigration tells a lot about its self-understanding as a nation and that one of the key questions in theories of secession is “who is actually seceding”, the interlink between immigration and secession has hardly been explored. In Catalonia, immigration represents 17% of the population, many of them having a legal age to vote. An important part comes from countries where some sort of territorial divide exists, providing grounds for empathy. However, the struggles that many migrants have to go through for reaching legal documents can counteract this initial empathy. This proposal aims at exploring immigrants’ views on the secession of Catalonia, and their relationship with independentist movements. Through the realization of focus groups with immigrant and pro-immigrant associations and the analysis of secondary sources, my objective is to explore newcomers’ views on independence, from the process to their final decision.
