Since the beginning of the year, a new method of entry of immigrants into Spain This is generating concerns, nerves and tensions in the national government, in the Community of Madrid and, above all, in the capital’s airport, Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas.
Because it has already happened more than a hundred times and continues to happen almost daily: to passengers on flights departing from an African country and with a final destination in South America They stop in Madrid and stay here.
Some, as soon as they set foot on Spanish soil, destroy their documents and ask for asylum. Others present themselves as unaccompanied minors and thus enter the specific protocol that applies when it is necessary to welcome foreign girls or boys who arrive alone and are under 18 years old.
The Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, defines it as “a fraudulent use of the scale”.
On Friday, during a visit to Rabat, where she met the Moroccan Interior Minister, Abdelouafi Laftit, Grande-Marlaska anticipated that Spain is studying the introduction of transit visas to decongest the airport, overwhelmed by asylum seekers.
less risky
An Iberia ticket, for example, to fly in February from Casablanca, Morocco, to Sao Paulo, Brazil, costs around 970 euros, round trip. A cheaper and less dizzying amount than paying – to the networks that traffic people – to risk their lives and cross the Atlantic by road.
According to the Ministry of the Interior In the first half of 2024, 3,678 people entered Spain illegally. Almost all – 3,480 – arrived on 53 boats.
Most landed in one of the Canary Islands, where irregular immigration increased by 286% compared to the first fortnight of 2023.
Asylum application
In 2023, Spain received more than 163,000 applications from potential future refugees, 30% of whom applied in Madrid.
“Last year there were an average of 77 new minors arriving per month, now we have gone up to 400”, admits the Minister of Family, Youth and Social Affairs of the Community of Madrid, Ana Dávila.
A group of migrants runs after crossing the fence that separates the Spanish enclave of Melilla from Morocco, in an image from 2022. Photo: AP Although not all people who use the Madrid stop on their flights to stay in Europe want to stay in Spain. On Sunday 14 January, 17 migrants broke a window in the room where they were waiting to have their asylum application processed at the airport and fled. Two days earlier also nine other people They escaped from Barajas by breaking the ceiling of the room they were in.
The Spanish Commission for Assistance to Refugees (CEAR) has denounced that the conditions in which asylum seekers wait at Barajas airport violate fundamental rights.
“The rooms intended for the reception of asylum seekers exceed their capacity, hosting to date (22 January) more than 390 people in undignified and inhuman conditions”, they underline. Around 182 people have not yet been able to formalize their asylum request, mainly coming from Senegal, Morocco, Somalia, Venezuela and Colombia.”
CEAR recalls that, according to European standards, the registration of an asylum application is a procedure that must be carried out within a period of between 3 and 10 days. “Delays in formalizing applications reached up to 18 days in December, although the situation has improved slightly, reducing it to 8,” they say.
From the office in Spain of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), they underline Clarion: “We are very concerned about the situation at Barajas airport, where asylum seekers have been overcrowded and without adequate hygienic conditions for a long time.”
An African migrant crosses the fence separating Morocco from the city of Ceuta, Spain, in a stock image. Photo: REUTERS“We have reiterated our concern to the authorities and support them in finding solutions,” they added. “We are providing interpreters to support Home Office instructors and lawyers providing legal assistance to asylum seekers at border posts in these interviews in Barajas.”
The ombudsman, Angel Gabildondo, visited Barajas’ asylum rooms. consulted by ClarionGabilondo’s defense makes it clear that it is necessary “to find a solution for the location of these people while their asylum request is resolved”.
“It is urgent that an adequate space be created in dignified conditions,” they add.
Illegal returns
This week, the Supreme Court confirmed that the immediate return – that is, the return of a migrant to the place of origin – of dozens of minors carried out by the Guardia Civil in 2021 was illegal.
In August of that year, a wave of more than 12,000 immigrants, the vast majority of them children not yet of age, climbed over the fences of Ceuta, one of two Spanish cities on African soil. The Moroccan gendarmerie and the Spanish civil guard returned them to Morocco.
For the Supreme Court it was an “absolute disregard” of what the immigration law establishes. According to this rule, the return requires, before expulsion from Spain, that a file with detailed information is opened for each minor, that there is a hearing with him and that the Prosecutor’s Office intervenes.
As of August 2021, none of these steps have been completed.
On Tuesday the opposition and other political forces called for the resignation or dismissal of the Interior Minister.
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.