The Spanish government is working on the urgent transfer of some 500 unaccompanied migrant girls from Ceuta to the mainland, the first of its kind since tens of thousands of people poured into the North African enclave from Morocco in late July.
The plan, led by the Ministry of Youth and Children in coordination with the city, was disclosed on Aug. 19 by Spanish radio network Cadena SER.
On Aug. 21, Secretary of State for Youth and Children Rubén Pérez Correa told Spanish public broadcaster RNE that he expected the transfer of 500 minors to mainland Spain to begin “within a few weeks.”
Ceuta President Juan Jesús Vivas said on Aug. 19 he was not in a position to oppose the plan, because the central government had yet to submit a proposal to his administration.
Pérez played down Vivas’s remarks, saying that a proposal had been put forward, while acknowledging that the government had yet to present a “concrete proposal.”
Brussels Restates Its Expectation
Asked about the plan at the European Commission’s midday briefing on Aug. 20, home affairs spokesman Markus Lammert said Brussels had seen the reports and was seeking details from Madrid.
“We are at this moment not in a position to confirm that any decision by the Spanish government has been taken,” he said.
“One thing should be clear: The protection of vulnerable minors must be ensured,” Lammert added, a duty he placed on the Spanish authorities.
He recalled “a clear expectation,” voiced by Spanish officials and EU interior ministers, that all migrants who entered Ceuta illegally be returned to Morocco, and said the commission was working intensively with Spain and Morocco “in full respect of EU and international law.”
That was more guarded than Aug. 18, when Lammert said the priority was the swift return of everyone staying in Ceuta illegally, “including unaccompanied minors,” and stressed: “It’s important that no one who is staying illegally in Ceuta will be transferred to mainland Spain.”
Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska, who put the number of migrants still in the city at about 5,000 on Aug. 13, told reporters that no one who entered irregularly would be allowed to remain, move to the mainland, or obtain papers, with the exception of “those very exceptional cases of extreme vulnerability.”
‘With Their Family’
Spain’s opposition argues that what serves the minors best is not dispersal across the peninsula but reunification with their relatives in Morocco.
“The best interest of the child is to be with their family,” Juan Bravo, the People’s Party (PP) deputy secretary for finance, housing, and infrastructure, said on broadcaster Antena 3.
Bravo questioned whether the government is protecting the children’s interests, as Migration Minister Elma Saiz has claimed, and recalled statements by Grande-Marlaska and Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares suggesting the minors would go back.
“If Morocco has requested the return of the children, if Europe has said that the children and the non-children, those who have entered irregularly, should please return, what more does the Government need?” he asked.
PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo went further on Aug. 19, demanding the removal of all who entered illegally. “Neither adults nor minors, all of them must go back,” he said, while his party announced it would seek a Senate reprimand of five ministers over the crisis.
Morocco’s justice minister, Abdellatif Ouahbi, told Moroccan outlet Hespress on Aug. 10 that Rabat remains committed to recovering all of its unaccompanied minors, including those who reached Ceuta, and would pursue their return through legal and political channels. The environment best able to guarantee them a future, he argued, is that of their families and their country.
“Morocco has asked to take these young people back, meaning their return home is entirely feasible. The government’s insistence on transferring them to the mainland is incomprehensible,” Rodrigo Ballester, a former Spanish European Commission official and head of the Center for European Studies at the Mathias Corvinus Collegium in Budapest, told The Epoch Times.
Ballester sees part of the explanation in domestic politics. “[Prime Minister Pedro] Sánchez’s shaky coalition depends on far-left parties whose migration agenda is uncompromising,” he said. In his view, the socialist prime minister’s sole priority is “political survival, which means he will not risk any measure that might alienate the left, even at a cost to Europe.”
“When 22 EU countries formally complain that you are unable to secure your border and insist they want no repeat of the 2015 “Merkel moment,” the normal response would be to take charge, declare a state of emergency, and reassure the capitals that have lost all confidence in you. Yet Sánchez is doing none of that,” he said.
“Yes, some 500 minors are in all likelihood vulnerable. But Morocco has made clear that it stands ready to take back its young nationals so they can be reunited with their families. And yet Spain is not sending them back,” Najwa El Haïté, a French-Moroccan lawyer, told The Epoch Times.
“The response to this type of situation must obviously be humane, because behind these crises are human lives, sometimes those of young people. But it must also be pragmatic,” she said.
The continent no longer has the capacity to take in more migrants, she argued, and many of those who do make the journey often end up living “in conditions unworthy of human dignity.”
“It is time to restore a coherent migration policy, one that firmly protects our borders and does away with the legal incentives that lead to so many human tragedies,” she added.
