Arrival of a group of 59 migrants to the port of Los Cristianos, in Tenerife, in the first landing of 2021.Miguel Barreto / EFE
Spain is once again the main gateway to the EU for irregular immigration.
As happened in 2018, arrivals to the Spanish coasts have exceeded those registered in the rest of the Mediterranean countries, this time due to the reactivation of the route to the Canary Islands, the most lethal to reach Europe.
In the absence of definitive data, Spain adds just over 41,000 irregular entries by land and sea, compared to 34,100 in Italy and 15,500 in Greece, according to December 28 figures from the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR.
The balance of 2020 supposes an approximate growth of 30% of irregular entries compared to 2019. It is a turnaround of the results of that year in which the Ministry of the Interior celebrated, with 32,500 landings, having reduced arrivals by half compared to 2018 thanks to the collaboration of Morocco in the control of its borders.
Shipwrecks have also multiplied and at least 872 people have died or disappeared on their way to Spain, according to the conservative estimate of the International Organization for Migration.
More than half of the newcomers in 2020 have made it to the Canary Islands, with an intensity that has not been seen since in 2006 the islands were the destination of more than 31,000 people in the period that was baptized as the “crisis of the cayucos ”.
The reopening of this route was a move planned by the Spanish security forces, who assumed that once Morocco - financed by the EU - tightened controls in the north of the country, the flows would be diverted to the Atlantic, but the Government would not prepared for a similar rate of arrivals.
The socioeconomic impact of the pandemic on the countries of origin was also not taken into account.
The virus, at first, contained the flows, but its economic consequences have ended up motivating and will motivate a good part of the exits.
In summer, police officers estimated that the year would close with 20,000 irregular entries, a forecast that was out of date in a few months.
The management of more than 22,000 landings concentrated mainly in Gran Canaria has been hampered by the health emergency, but also by the slow response of the Executive and the lack of coordination between ministries, a combination that ended up causing, once again, a crisis of reception and reception.
During these months, hundreds of immigrants have been crammed onto the floor of a dock, held for more than the 72 hours established by law and without basic hygiene conditions;
Children have been separated from their mothers and it has been normalized that newcomers do not even see a lawyer.
The feeling of loneliness of the Canaries in the face of the crisis has tense the regional authorities, which continue to demand a solidarity distribution of immigrants in the rest of the autonomous communities, and has awakened xenophobia in a population that has been particularly hit by the crisis .
December has given the islands a certain truce - after November with 8,200 landings - but the boats continue to arrive and the month has closed with the rescue of almost 3,000 people, who embarked mainly in Senegal, Mauritania and Western Sahara.
More than a year after the reactivation of this route, the emergency continues.
Around 7,000 immigrants are still housed in hotels waiting to be transferred to six macrocamps, the Executive's commitment to host and retain them in the archipelago pending future deportation.
However, returns to Mauritania, Senegal or Morocco continue to be limited after months of hiatus due to the closure of borders imposed by the coronavirus.
After renewing the commitment of Senegal and Mauritania to accept the return of immigrants, Spain managed to agree with Morocco to return its nationals, who account for more than half of those who arrived in the archipelago.
The deal involves filling Air Royal Maroc commercial flights that leave Gran Canaria bound for El Aaiún, capital of Western Sahara.
Since last December 7, four planes have departed a week with a maximum of 20 immigrants and almost twice as many police officers guarding them.
It is a profitable business for the airline and although it involves the return of only a few hundred immigrants, the Government hopes it will be a brake on the departure of Moroccans.
The Algerian route, a record without spotlights
Although the Canary Islands have been attracting all the attention for months, the migration route from Algeria has experienced an activity never seen before.
The North African country is mired in a political, health and financial crisis and, despite the fact that it collaborates intensively with Spain in the fight against irregular immigration without asking for money in return, as Morocco does, the emigration of its young people has intensified in the last two years.
In 2020, more than 11,200 Algerians have landed on the coasts of the Balearic Islands, Alicante, Murcia, Almería and Granada;
and they are the second largest nationality after Moroccans, according to police sources.
It is the highest record since 2009, when the European Border Agency (Frontex) began compiling statistics, and far exceeds the record reached in 2018 with the arrival of some 4,300 Algerians.
The figures of irregular immigration end up determining migration policies, especially marked by the guidelines of the Ministry of the Interior, but they represent a very small part of the phenomenon in Spain, where 5.8 million immigrants currently live legally.
In 2019 alone, 666,022 foreigners settled in the country, according to the National Institute of Statistics (INE).
This data reveals that the vast majority of immigrants arrive legally, although a good part of them later encounter a multitude of bureaucratic obstacles to regularize themselves or to maintain their permits.
The highest growth in the migrant population has been seen above all in the group of Venezuelans, Colombians and Hondurans, precisely the three most numerous nationalities among asylum seekers.
"There is a radical need to approach the migratory phenomenon as something structural and not as an emergency or a crisis", reflects the researcher at the Pompeu University Fabra Lorenzo Gabrielli.
“This would allow the design of more proactive and pragmatic policies and assess their results.
A more flexible visa regime, for example, would allow a more fluid movement of people and a radical reduction in the risks associated with migratory routes without the need to resort to smugglers, ”adds Gabrielli.
"We must disconnect the migration issue from security and begin to approach the debate from a different perspective," advocates the expert.
Leader in asylum applications
Spain closes 2020 as the EU country that receives the most asylum applications.
Despite the almost total restriction of movements during the most critical months of the pandemic, 84,264 requests have been registered, the majority from Venezuelans, Colombians and Hondurans.
The number, 21% of the total in the EU, exceeds those assumed by France (78,783) and Germany (77,732), according to data as of December 8 from the European Asylum Support Office (EASO).
The asylum route has ended up becoming one of the few ways to migrate to Spain with a certain legality and the sustained increase in applications since 2018 has put the Spanish system in front of the mirror.
On the one hand, the management of petitions, which depends on the Ministry of the Interior, still does not give an adequate response to those interested who struggle for months for an appointment at the police station to start their procedures and who, then, wait up to two years to obtain a verdict.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations has assumed that more than 8,000 potential refugees are waiting for a reception place and plans to turn the system around, which is currently supported by grants to NGOs, to reinforce the role of the State and also from private sector managers.