While Spain is in the midst of a complicated migration crisis, at the end of 2023, the second year in which more irregular immigrants arrived in the national territory, the migration agreement that Pedro Sánchez concluded with Joe Biden in the spring of 2023 begins to take effect, an appointment, about which the Foreign Ministry did not want to disclose details a few months later at the request of the Transparency Council.
In the midst of the collapse in the Canary Islands, it is estimated that 281 immigrants have arrived in our country, sent by the United States government after fleeing the regimes of Nicolás Maduro and Daniel Ortega.
Among them are 23 Nicaraguan families who are already living in Valladolid after arriving in December.
Spain agreed to accept asylum seekers in U.S.-run regional processing centers to ease pressure at its borders.
The executive assures that it is a procedure to ensure “safe immigration” that guarantees “relocation of persons entitled to international protection”, citing the “right of asylum”.
In May, before Pedro Sánchez met with Biden, State Department chief José Manuel Albares met in Washington with his counterpart Antony Blinken to discuss the details of the immigration deal, although neither provided data on the number of immigrants affected nor from which centers the applications would be processed or what the immigration status is after their arrival in Spain, in our case.
At the request of Transparency, the Director of the Cabinet of Minister Albares rejected the request for information in this regard on the grounds that it concerns “other departments” that were not mentioned, relying on Article 18.1.d) of the Regulations, which provides for the Declaration of inadmissibility of a request for information if it is addressed “to a body which does not have the information and the competent authority is unknown”.
One of the “departments” involved and affected by the agreement sealed is the Ministry of Integration, Social Security and Migration, headed by José Luis Escrivá, in charge of opening the so-called regional migration management offices in Colombia and Guatemala, in UNHCR and World Migration Organization officials must select candidates to be transferred to Spain and Canada. With this step, interested parties in these countries can receive international protection or resettlement, for example with a work permit.
The United States' agreement with Spain and Canada aims to promote legal migration channels in the face of the expiration of immigration regulations and the return of the so-called Title 8, under which those migrants who arrive at their borders illegally will be sent back and will not be able to return. I will try it in 5 years. The Biden administration has stated that the intention is to “ultimately open approximately 100 regional processing centers in key locations in the Western Hemisphere.”
For its part, the United States has just reopened several entry points on the border with Mexico due to the massive arrival of migrants in recent months.