Spanish Socialists, Mugged By Reality, Reverse Their Immigration Policy

Geller Report: [ Hugh Fitzgerald ] When the Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez assumed office last May, he soon showed that, while other countries in Europe were tightening their immigration policies, open-hearted Spain would be doing the opposite. He soon had a chance to demonstrate his country’s generosity. In mid-June, Italy, enforcing the new strict policy on immigration of Mario Salvini, the Minister of the Interior, turned away the rescue ship Aquarius with 630 sub-Saharan Africans aboard. Spain promptly allowed the ship, escorted by two vessels of the Spanish navy, to land at Valencia, and the migrants to disembark. Since May, this policy has continued, with an average of 230 African (and some North African) migrants entering Spanish territory from Africa each day. Some 26,000 have come by sea, smuggled in on small boats, or picked up from unseaworthy vessels by European rescue ships who deliver them to Spanish ports. Others have taken a land route, through Morocco. Once they are in Morocco, they then attempt to enter the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla that, though surrounded by Moroccan territory, have been Spanish since 1415. As soon as these migrants manage to set foot on the soil of either enclave, they are legally in Spain, and cannot be deported under current rules, but are taken to the Spanish mainland to have their requests for asylum assessed.

These migrants, hoping to be recipients of all the benefits that European welfare states offer, stop at nothing in their attempt to enter these enclaves. Mobs of hundreds attack the Spanish guards protecting the security fences, throwing plastic receptacles at them filled with feces, blood, battery acid, and quicklime. Some have had homemade flame throwers. Many guards have been wounded in these attacks, some seriously. The Spanish government this summer declared its intention both to reduce the height of the fence — now six meters — and to remove the barbed wire on top, lest too many migrants be wounded in attempting to climb over it. This ludicrous policy seems, fortunately, not to have been carried out.  read more