San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Spain’s immigrant wave grows
MÁLAGA, Spain — The new Socialist government has waded straight into Europe’s migration crisis — out of both choice and necessity.
Shortly after taking office this month, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez won plaudits from aid groups for welcoming to Spain 630 migrants from the Aquarius, a rescue ship that had been turned away by Italy and Malta. But at home, Sánchez is under pressure to stem a sudden influx of migrants crossing from Morocco on inflatable boats.
The number of un- documented migrants arriving in Europe from Africa, the Middle East and Asia has fallen sharply since 2016 — except in Spain, where it has soared.
On Saturday, Spain’s Maritime Rescue Service said it picked up 63 people trying to reach the country’s southern Mediterranean coast, the Associated Press reported.
The service said 58 were found in the Strait of Gibraltar traveling in three boats that departed from North Africa. Five more people were rescued farther east in the Mediterranean Sea.
Spain’s situation underlines its reliance on Moroccan authorities to stop migrants who try either to cross the Strait of Gibraltar or to climb the fences that surround Spain’s two enclaves in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla. The increased flow has raised concerns in Spain that Morocco may have deliberately relaxed surveillance along its beaches facing Spain.
“Everyone is using migrants and asylum seekers these days as pawns, so why wouldn’t Morocco?” asked Judith Sunderland, an associate director at Human Rights Watch. “Over the years, Morocco has used migration as a leverage in its bilateral relations with Spain, and the EU is projecting such panic over boat migration these days that it’s likely different actors will try to seek an advantage.”
On Thursday, Spain’s interior and foreign ministers went to Rabat to meet their Moroccan counterparts and discuss migration after two weeks in which more than 2,000 migrants made the crossing by boat. Most were rescued at sea.
The situation in the southern Spanish region of Andalusia had already “reached a critical point that clearly exceeds our infrastructure capacity,” said Samuel Linares, who coordinates Spanish Red Cross activities in the province of Málaga, a part of Andalusia.
In fact, Spanish authorities have been flouting their own migration protocols because of the squeeze on their staff and infrastructure. People who reach Spain illegally spend up to 72 hours in police custody, and if they are not deported right away, they are supposed to go to official migrant centers for up to 60 days, while their asylum claims are reviewed.
But the migrant centers are full. Authorities have turned to groups like the Red Cross to shelter and feed migrants.