Irregular migrants enter Spain in record numbers, regions want urgent help

Irregular migrant arrivals from Africa reached record levels in Spain in the first two weeks of August with increases of 126% in the Canary Islands and 143% in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, leaving regions crying out for help.

A large number of these irregular migrants who manage to reach Spanish territory come from Mauritania and the Sahel region, where the current escalation of violence is displacing thousands of people and posing significant security challenges for the EU.

Between the 1 and 15 August, 1,033 people arrived on the coasts of the Iberian Peninsula in 72 boats, while in July, 1,698 set foot in Spain, a much higher number compared to previous months (January to August), according to a new report by the Spanish Interior Ministry.

Between January and August, 31,155 irregular migrants arrived in Spain, 66.2% more than in the same period last year, when 18,745 managed to enter the Iberian country, according to the same study.

Most arrived by sea: 29,512 on 908 on small boats.

Spain is a hotspot for the entry of migrants, mainly from the dangerous Atlantic route from West African countries to the Canary Islands and from the northern border between the Spanish autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla and Morocco, with which Madrid has recently had several diplomatic rows over the migration dossier.

The Spanish-Moroccan border has been described by many experts as “the most unequal in the world”, with GDP per capita at opposite ends of the scale: Spain with almost $32,677 and Morocco with $3,672, according to World Bank data.

Migration as a political scapegoat of far-right

The ‘migration hot potato’ is one of the most controversial issues on the Spanish political scene, with the far-right VOX party using the issue to attack the progressive government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (PSOE/S&D), echoing the rhetoric of other far-right hardline parties in the EU such as Germany’s AfD or Italy’s Lega.

Other Spanish far-right parties, such as the new SALF formation led by the controversial Alvise Pérez, also maintain a hostile discourse towards migration, which they ‘blame’, without any real arguments, for many of society’s problems, including insecurity.

However, official figures show that Spain is an increasingly diverse country: out of a population of 48.8 million, 8.7 million (17.8%) are foreigners, and legal immigrants now account for 13.6% of the total workforce, according to data from the National Statistics Institute (INE).

In July, Fernando Clavijo, the head of the Canary Islands regional executive – a coalition of three centre-right parties, including the Partido Popular (PP/EPP) – urged Sánchez and the EU to address the region’s urgent needs on the issue.

Between January and 15 August alone, a total of 22,304 people arrived in the Canary Islands, 126.1% more than in the same period last year, when 9,864 irregular migrants set foot in this Spanish autonomous community.

‘Migratory emergency’

Coalición Canaria has called on Sánchez to take “two hours out of his holidays to address the migration emergency”, the party recently said on X.

In an attempt to reinforce Madrid’s message of economic solidarity – including the investment of millions of euros – with Africa’s main migrant-sending countries, Sánchez is planning an official visit to Mauritania by the end of August – his second to the country in less than a year, official sources told Euractiv’s partner EFE.

One of the most serious problems currently facing the authorities in the Canary Islands is the bottleneck in the reception of unaccompanied migrant minors, with almost 6,000 children currently being accommodated, almost three times the capacity of the public centres.

Ceuta has also sounded the alarm this summer, asking the government for urgent help to deal with a situation they describe as “unsustainable” after the arrival of 416 unaccompanied minors in the last few days when the maximum capacity of their state-run centres is 130.

The situation has become so serious that the leader of the centre-right opposition and head of the Spanish People’s Party (PP/EPP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, recently called on the government to declare a “migratory emergency” in the country.

Last July, one of the PP’s most prominent politicians, the party’s parliamentary spokesman Miguel Tellado, suggested that the Spanish government should take drastic measures to curb irregular migration flows, including resorting to deploying the army.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)