For the reason that starting of the yr a New modality for the entry of immigrants into Spain It creates concern, nervousness and stress within the nationwide authorities, within the Neighborhood of Madrid and above all within the capital’s Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas airport.
As a result of it has already occurred greater than 100 instances and continues to occur virtually on daily basis: passengers on flights that began from an African nation and had their remaining vacation spot in South America You make a stopover in Madrid and keep right here.
As quickly as they set foot on Spanish soil, some destroy their paperwork and apply for asylum. Others pose as unaccompanied minors and are subsequently topic to the particular protocol that applies relating to receiving international ladies or boys who arrive alone and are beneath 18 years previous.
Inside Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska describes it as “fraudulent use of the scales”.
On Friday, throughout a go to to Rabat the place he met with Moroccan Inside Minister Abdelouafi Laftit, Grande-Marlaska anticipated this Spain is learning the introduction of transit visas to alleviate the airport, which is overcrowded with asylum seekers.
much less dangerous
For instance, an Iberia ticket for a flight in February from Casablanca in Morocco to São Paulo in Brazil prices round 970 euros, spherical journey. A quantity cheaper and fewer dizzying than paying the networks that transport individuals to threat their lives and cross the Atlantic by rubber.
In response to the Inside Ministry Within the first half of 2024, three,678 individuals entered Spain illegally. Nearly all of them – three,480 – arrived in 53 boats.
The bulk ended up in one of many Canary Islands, the place irregular immigration elevated by 286 p.c in comparison with the primary fifteen days of 2023.
software for asylum
In 2023, Spain acquired greater than 163,000 purposes from potential future refugees, 30 p.c of whom submitted their software in Madrid.
“Final yr a mean of 77 new minors arrived per 30 days, now there are 400,” admits the Minister of Household, Youth and Social Affairs of the Neighborhood of Madrid, Ana Dávila.
A gaggle of migrants run after crossing the fence separating the Spanish enclave of Melilla from Morocco in an image from 2022. Picture: AP Nonetheless, not all individuals who use the Madrid stopover on their flights to remain in Europe wish to keep in Spain. On Sunday, January 14, 17 migrants broke a window within the room the place they had been ready for his or her asylum purposes to be processed on the airport and fled. Two days earlier, 9 different individuals too They escaped from Barajas by breaking down the ceiling of the room they had been in.
The Spanish Fee for Refugee Help (CEAR) complained that the circumstances during which asylum seekers wait at Barajas airport violated basic rights.
“The rooms supposed to accommodate asylum seekers exceed their capability and, so far (January 22), accommodate greater than 390 individuals in undignified and inhumane circumstances,” they emphasize. Round 182 individuals haven’t but been capable of formalize their asylum software, primarily from Senegal, Morocco, Somalia, Venezuela and Colombia.”
CEAR remembers that, in keeping with European requirements, registering an asylum software is a process that must be carried out inside a interval of between three and 10 days. “Delays in formalizing purposes reached as much as 18 days in December, though the state of affairs has improved barely, falling to eight days,” it stated.
They level this out from the workplace of the United Nations Excessive Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Spain Clarion: “We’re very involved in regards to the state of affairs at Barajas Airport, the place overcrowded asylum seekers have lengthy been residing with out ample sanitary circumstances.”
An African migrant crosses the fence that separates Morocco from town of Ceuta in Spain in an archive picture. Picture: REUTERS“Now we have expressed our issues to the authorities and are supporting them find options,” they added. “We’re offering interpreters to help Inside Ministry trainers and legal professionals who present authorized help to asylum seekers at border posts throughout these interviews in Barajas.”
Ombudsman Angel Gabildondo visited the Barajas asylum rooms. consulted by ClarionGabilondo’s protection workplace clarifies that it’s essential to “discover a resolution to the whereabouts of those individuals whereas their asylum software is resolved.”
“There may be an pressing must create adequate house in respectable circumstances,” they add.
Unlawful returns
This week, the Supreme Court docket confirmed that the speedy repatriation – that’s, the return of a migrant to the place from which he got here – of dozens of minors carried out by the Guardia Civil in 2021 was unlawful.
In August of that yr, a wave of greater than 12,000 immigrants, the overwhelming majority of them youngsters underage, jumped the fences of Ceuta, one in every of two Spanish cities on African soil. The Moroccan Gendarmerie and the Spanish Civil Guard persuaded a number of of them to return to Morocco.
For the Supreme Court docket, there was a “full disregard” for what the immigration regulation states. In response to this rule, the return offers that, earlier than expulsion from Spain, a file containing detailed info is opened for every minor, a listening to is held with him and the intervention of the general public prosecutor’s workplace.
As of August 2021, none of those steps have been accomplished.
The opposition and different political forces referred to as for the resignation or dismissal of the Inside Minister this Tuesday.