Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska defended his migration policy in the Senate on Tuesday in the face of criticism from Vox about it, noting that “irregular immigration” to Spain “has decreased by 36% compared to 2022. “.
Marlaska also clarified that in the Canary Islands the number of irregular arrivals of migrants has decreased by 51% compared to last year. In Sebta and Melilla this figure has decreased by 75% compared to the same period in 2022, while for arrivals to the Canary Islands they have halved, i.e. by 51.52%. Paradoxically, the figures for arrivals on the Balearic Islands and the Peninsula are less eloquent since they are up by 28.94%.
These data with a downward trend are those of the last month (April) and they indicate that in the first four months of the year compared to the same period of the previous year, in terms of illegal immigration, it fell by more than a third (36.38%).
This is explained by the fact that it is from Algeria where most of the migratory flows leave today. The Balearic Islands being the next door to Algerian coastal towns, irregular migrants are flocking there from all sides in view of the tightening of cooperation between Morocco and Spain.
Indeed, the effectiveness of the implementation of the migration fight is such that it pushes the “mafias” of trafficking to take other routes and to fall back on the Algerian coasts to ensure the crossing of migrants to the Spain before bouncing back to the Old Continent.
That said, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, in revealing these numbers, was responding to a question posed by Vox Senator Yolanda Merelo during the government scrutiny session in the Senate. The latter questioned ” the policy of open borders and the Executive’s call effect“.
The leadership of the government makes migrants believe that in Spain “you can enter attacking the police, while the executive looks away”, declared the senator who does not seem to have Morocco in her heart. The good lady even accused the Spanish Executive of ” to go to morocco to avoid their wrath and, in this way, prevent him from sending ” a new migratory invasion ” in the country.
As a reminder, last mid-April the Moroccan authorities thwarted a massive assault on the Sebta fence by arresting more than 200 immigrants, almost half of whom were locked up and with many wounded on the side of the Forces de the Moroccan order. Such is the tribute to be paid so that Spain avoids a flow of irregular migrants reaching its shores, which Yolande Merelo seems to want to deliberately conceal.
In her far-right speech, the “senator” did not cut corners, accusing the minister of the fact that the government is ” determined “ that has ” foreigners come to work » while there is « a record rate of broken fixed lines“.
And to add: If you open the doors for anyone to enter our house, when they come and find that we have nothing to offer them and they have to pay a debt to the mafias who have been dealing with them, their next step will be prostitution , delinquency and illegal trade“.
Impassive the Minister of the Interior, after recalling that this was the seventh question from Vox on this subject in the plenary session of the Senate, underlined that Melero’s remarks ” confirm the way of doing politics by the far right and Vox which, according to him, is a policy of the lie and hate“.
” The only thing you are doing is creating fear without content and without reason in a society that has already discovered you”he hammered.
Marlaska also indicated that his team is conducting a ” security policy » at the borders with « more agents better paid ” and of ” better infrastructure“, while the management of migration in Italy, with a government “very ideologically close to Vox increased irregular migration by 500% this year“.
In this sense, he highlighted the cooperation of migration policies that Spain is implementing, in which the EU is also involved. According to him, this is the only method possible to manage this file with absolute respect for human rights“.
In the same vein, the President of the Spanish government, Pedro Sanchez, had recently described Rabat as a “essential ally for our safety and for an orderly migration in our country and on the European continent”.