The optimistic speech lasted until August. Reconciliation with Morocco in March 2022 – before a change in Spanish foreign policy towards Western Sahara – had led to a halt to boat trips, and Spain remained the only Mediterranean country where the number of irregular immigration had fallen. As the number of new arrivals in Italy and Greece soared, Spanish government ministers highlighted these data as a sign of good migration management and cooperation in the context of growing pressures in Europe: migration policy has been at the forefront in several recent elections, for example in the Netherlands, and this vital agenda will take center stage in the European elections in June. But the downward trend quickly reversed and Spain ended the year as the second EU country with the most entries outside approved border posts, behind only Italy. It is also the second country with the highest increase in irregular immigration.
The latest Home Office data shows 52,945 arrivals by land and sea as of December 15. Spain thus recorded an increase of 76% compared to 2022, breaking the downward trend of the last two years. For its part, Italy has exceeded 153,000 arrivals, 46% more than in 2022, and Greece has remained at almost 45,000, although the increase compared to last year is 139%. The number of deaths at sea remains a constant: at least 1,142 people died or disappeared while trying to reach Spanish shores.
The Spanish figure, which, if one calculates the last two weeks of the year, will exceed 54,600 arrivals, is the second highest record in the historical series and was only surpassed in 2018, when 64,298 people entered irregularly. This milestone prompted the government to mediate with the EU to secure more funding for Morocco, estimating its own allocation at 30 million euros per year.
The Senegalese route
The key to 2023 has been the landings in the Canary Islands, which have broken records this year and represent more than 70% of the total. But the arrival of Moroccans on the coasts of the peninsulas has also been relevant, in thousands of cases on board drug boats, a phenomenon that is still uncontrolled and worries the security forces. The land borders of Ceuta and Melilla, however, remain practically closed.
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The Canary Archipelago recorded the most significant increase (144%) with 37,187 landings, most of them on the small island of El Hierro, where cayucos arrived mainly from Senegal, but also from Gambia. However, the last few weeks of the year have seen an increase in boats from Mauritania, a trend that Spanish authorities are closely monitoring. “Mauritania, like Senegal, sees the EU making multi-million dollar pacts with Turkey, Libya or Morocco, and the time will come when they will demand more money,” police sources emphasize. In any case, the Interior Ministry welcomes the cooperation of its partners. Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska has repeatedly assured that this cooperation “saves lives” because 40% of people who try to reach Spain through precarious routes are prevented from going to sea.
Arrive aboard a 54-person inflatable boat to La Garita beach in the north of Lanzarote. Adriel Perdomo (EFE)
To understand the reactivation of the Canary Islands route, which has not been achieved since 2006, we must first look at Senegal, where political and economic factors are pushing the younger population to emigrate on dangerous canoe trips.
Tidiane Diallo, a 31-year-old Senegalese woman, gave her life to board a wooden boat that arrived in the Canary Islands in October with nearly 300 people on board. When he arrived, he seemed determined: he came from a poor family and had to help his people. “It's frustrating for us because no matter what you study or where you work, you will never earn enough. I will always be better here than in my country, no matter how bad things get,” he said. But now he regrets getting into that canoe every day. “If you don't have papers, you suffer a lot and work 14 or 15 hours a day for 900 euros a month. If I had known that, I wouldn't have taken all the risk of suffering like that in the end,” he says from Lleida, where he works in the fields. “Honestly, I want to return to Senegal, but the social pressure is great and I am afraid of returning empty-handed because I know that no one in my family will talk to me if I do.”
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An internal report by the European border protection agency Frontex points to some reasons for the increase in irregular Senegalese emigration. This includes the lack of jobs to cover the rising cost of living. While Spain ended the year with inflation at 3.5%, the World Bank estimated that average inflation in Senegal was 9.6% in 2022, compared to 2.2% in 2021. “A large proportion of the population” Young Senegalese women are not earning enough income to offset these increases,” the document says. There is also a demographic problem. 75% of Senegalese's population is under 35 years old and every year around 300,000 young people enter a labor market that does not provide enough jobs for everyone. Added to this are the depletion of fishing resources, a sector that accounts for 3.2% of the national GDP, and the authoritarian tendencies of President Macky Sall.
The Moroccan Key
The focus of migration was on the Canary Islands, but arrivals on other coasts are also increasing. The 14,312 registrations registered in the Peninsula and the Balearic Islands represent an increase of 20% compared to the previous year and are concentrated in the Peninsula. Departures from Morocco are increasing while they are decreasing from Algeria. The land borders of Ceuta and Melilla are the only ones that continue to show negative numbers, barely 1,200 people managed to cross them in 2023, 46.5% less than the previous year.
Morocco continues to play a crucial role in the Migration Committee, but the analysis of its cooperation depends on the angle from which it is analyzed. It is always praised by the Spanish authorities in public, although it is also questioned privately. “They perform operations, they work, but they don’t care about their lives either. “They could do a lot more,” said a police source who requested anonymity.
Operations against migrants and refugees in Morocco and Western Sahara have effectively reduced departures from these areas to the Canary Islands. It is estimated to be around 17%, according to figures available to the Spanish authorities in October. But Moroccan-controlled regions continue to be the departure points for about 40% of arrivals, according to police, a figure very similar to Senegal. Moroccans are also the main nationality of those entering Spain through irregular immigration routes.
Minimum returns
On the other hand, the return figures show that the major goal of returning immigrants who entered the EU irregularly and are not entitled to asylum is far from reality. According to internal data accessed by EL PAÍS, the Interior Ministry is unable to send back even 5% of immigrants from Morocco, Senegal, Algeria, Guinea or Ivory Coast, the five countries from which most immigrants come. dangerously reaching the Spanish borders. According to these confidential figures, around a thousand people remain under forced repatriation.
Morocco, the African partner that has accepted the most returns, barely allows modest weekly quotas. Algeria, which suspended the repatriation of its citizens in response to Spain's rapprochement with the Moroccan position in Western Sahara, has only accepted fewer than twenty repatriations. Senegal continues to refuse to accept large groups and has only accepted a few dozen of its nationals. Most returns from Spain, with more relevant figures, are destined for Albania and Latin America, but Interior does not provide this data nor does it claim it through the Transparency Law.
The inability to process returns is not just a problem in Spain. The repatriation of irregular immigrants is one of the pillars of the European Migration and Asylum Pact that has just been concluded, but is failing due to the stubbornness of the numbers and the reluctance of the countries of origin to accept their nationals. According to a Frontex tally accessed by EL PAÍS, Member States reported 333,068 return orders issued against third-country nationals between January and September 2023, of which 72,985 were carried out, i.e. only 22%.
The Interior Minister himself, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, raised the difficulties of returns in Congress in December. “Do you think countries will accept return given the economic and personal circumstances in which they live? Let's send planes with 300? But do you know – I've told you this a thousand times – what emigration remittances mean in Senegal, Gambia and Guinea-Conakry, for example? Between 10% and 15% of its GDP. She [los gobernantes de esos países] They are also running for election. Do you believe that if there is no cooperation? […] Do you accept?” Grande-Marlaska also assured that Spain was the EU country that carried out the most returns, but did not provide any data to support this. In Frontex reports, Spain is among the countries that receive the most immigrants deport, but is always behind France and Germany.
Record number of people seeking protection
But aside from the attention they receive, irregular entries represent only a small proportion of the migratory flows arriving in Spain. And they represent an even smaller proportion of the more than six million people with foreign nationality who live in Spain.
“We must insist that we have two borders,” says Blanca Garcés, migration researcher at the Cidob Analysis Center. “One of them is the southern border, securitized and problematized. The numbers are small in comparison, but it is still the border that we all have in our minds, while we forget the other border that connects us to Latin America, which is numerically much more relevant. This limit is not worrying because it is perceived as culturally narrow and serves to tacitly meet the needs of the labor market,” explains Garcés.
In fact, the data shows that the majority of immigrants with a high probability of becoming illegal enter the country by plane and come not from Africa but from Latin America. And an invisible phenomenon is responsible for this: the exponential increase in asylum seekers.
The number of people seeking refuge continues to grow and has broken all records this year with 152,000 applications at the end of November. They are mostly Venezuelans, Colombians and Peruvians who land as tourists with the intention of applying for asylum upon arrival in Spain. Once the application is accepted, the law guarantees that they will be able to live and work legally after six months until their matter is resolved. A process that can take years instead of the six months provided for in the European directive.
Spain has been one of the three EU countries with the most requests for five years, but despite the experience of the war in Ukraine, whose refugees were granted temporary protection in less than 24 hours, the system still does not respond to the needs of others Nationalities.
There are a lack of resources to make appointments or to study the files quickly. According to Eurostat, there are 196,000 unresolved applications in the drawers of the Asylum and Refugee Office. “With more dossiers than applications to resolve, Spain is failing in this matter,” said Estrella Galán, secretary general of the Spanish Commission for Refugees (CEAR). “Access is not guaranteed and there are no solutions to the lack of appointments, making the real number of applicants in Spain invisible,” he adds. “There have been improvements in the asylum office, but the pressing problem remains unresolved because people have no access to protection.”
Spain has a very low asylum recognition rate, just 6.6% compared to the European average of 22%. In addition to Ukraine, the citizens with the most positive decisions come from Mali, Syria and Afghanistan, while Colombia, Morocco and Peru concentrate the unfavorable answers.
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