At the beginning of the week, the Government began to take seriously, following alerts from information services that had been camouflaged in social media groups, the possibility of the attempted mass crossing in Ceuta, which ended up stopping Morocco yesterday.
The different ministries affected by the immigration issue launched the machinery to send the message, knowing that it is impossible to comply, that anyone who enters Spain irregularly will be expelled. An intense week, with a carousel of ministers visiting Ceuta, in which Moncloa has raised its tone on migration, juggling so as not to bother Morocco. The objectives of the plan, summarized in five points: that the avalanche at the end of July is not repeated (achieved yesterday) and that the largest number of immigrants left in Ceuta leave (still to be achieved).
Two heavyweights from the socialist wing of the Government raised the tone of the immigration discourse at the beginning of the week: the Ministers of Foreign Affairs and Justice, José Manuel Albares and Félix Bolaños, respectively. The most forceful was the head of Spanish diplomacy who assured that “every last person” who entered Spain irregularly would return to Morocco as it was the “express will” of Rabat. His statements, which caused astonishment in other departments such as the Interior, Migration and Youth and Children, ignored that in the repatriations of minors the best interest of the minor must take precedence over that of both countries. He also ignored that sub-Saharan migrants, who represent a good number of the people who remain in Ceuta, have the right to request international protection. The mere admission for processing of the asylum application entails, according to current legislation, authorization of entry and provisional stay in Spain of the applicant.
The Government has continued with its diplomatic line of not bothering Morocco either for its permissiveness on the border during the massive jump through which more than 70,000 people entered or for the recovery of its sovereignty claims over Ceuta and Melilla. Not only because the Alawite kingdom has the key to the faucet of irregular entries, but because the priority of the Executive, according to ministerial sources, continues to be the return of the maximum number of migrants who remain in the autonomous city. And this is only possible if Rabat, as since July 31, keeps the door open to return to its territory at border control, through which the Police continue to return an average of 200 people per day. A figure that was far exceeded on Wednesday, when agents guarded 345 adult Moroccans to the border.
The controversy over the distribution of migrant minors between autonomous communities took a backseat after the Government, through the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, assured that the “priority” was family reunification, as Morocco also claims to prefer. Behind this twist in the argument lies, according to the same sources, the “need” to prevent the idea from spreading that migrants will end up crossing to the Peninsula, distributing themselves between regions. That is to say, the aim was to neutralize a possible brewing effect of a new mass crossing attempt. However, both in Territorial Policy and in Youth and Children know that the most viable option to alleviate the child care system in Ceuta, as has already happened in the Canary Islands, is mandatory distribution, which both ministries made an effort to approve by law.
In retrospect, the Government admits that the hoaxes that spread like wildfire about the Supreme Court ruling that determined that direct returns of immigrants intercepted at sea are not allowed and about the extraordinary regularization were not countered by official voices before the massive jump. Moncloa considered the lesson learned. During this week, successive messages with “verified information” have been launched from channels such as the “Any information to the contrary is FALSE,” they added. Even the Civil Guard, in messages in three languages, joined 24 hours after the call on August 15 with a "if you jump into the sea, you will probably die. If you manage to cross, you will have entered illegally and they will return you."
The Government has also not entered into the confrontation with the president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, of the Popular Party, who in his desperate calls for help to avoid another “invasion” has launched proposals that at any other time would have raised an enormous cloud of dust in the Moncloa. Vivas has called for the construction of a temporary Foreigners Internment Center (CIE) to lock up people who entered irregularly or even suspend the right to asylum, implicitly inviting the Government to ignore national legislation and international treaties.
