The Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) Irídia and NovAct presented this Monday night in Arrecife the Report on Human Rights Violations on the Southern Border of the Spanish State 2021-2022. This initiative has emerged from a network of collaborations of different identities, including the Solidarity Network with Migrants and lawyers from Lanzarote.
"We skin their countries. The African green passport is worth nothing, but the minerals of their country are worth a lot. The faces are part of our responsibility and hypocrisy and we are interested in them arriving irregularly to have them exploited laborally and sexually," begins the Spanish-Saharan lawyer Loueila Mint El Mamy at the beginning of the presentation of the report at the César Manrique Foundation in Lanzarote.
The migratory route to the Canary Islands is one of the deadliest on the planet. In 2022 alone, the Caminando Fronteras collective registered up to 1,784 deaths of African people who left in precarious boats to the Archipelago, where most of the bodies are lost in the Atlantic. With all the lives that have remained in the sea, so far this year more than 31,000 people have survived and arrived on the island's coasts. However, the journey does not end there and those who arrive must overcome the barriers of the immigration system.
"What this system says is that don't leave your country, if you leave, die and if you arrive go back to your country," denounces the lawyer of the Immigration Subcommittee of the Lanzarote Bar Association, Irma Ferrer.
When a group of migrants arrives on the island aboard a precarious boat, they are attended to by the Red Cross at the foot of the port. This report denounces that only in Tenerife and Gran Canaria there is "a coordination protocol in the action in the docks agreed upon" by this NGO, the police forces, the Canary Islands Emergency Service (SUC) and Maritime Rescue. In addition, there is only a presence of a Basic Life Support ambulance, so "the presence of personnel is not guaranteed with medical or nursing knowledge, and there is also no staff specialized in Childhood."
The ship of shame
After that, some people are transferred to the hospital, while the majority are referred to the Temporary Foreigners Assistance Center (CATE) of the National Police station in Arrecife, where they remain in the custody of the National Police legally for up to 72 hours.
During 2021 and 2022, the report states that the CATE, known as The ship of shame and which was located on the road between Arrecife and San Bartolomé, experienced "numerous violations of rights in these short-term detention centers." At this point, Laetitia Marthe, from the Solidarity Network for the Reception of Migrants in Lanzarote, shows images of the interior of this space, where hundreds of people slept on mattresses on the floor, with overflowing sanitary bathrooms and with only one water tap.
"A single water point for 500-600 people, people lying on mattresses, women in postpartum. In a civilized society, we can't think of other places to put them than in a place full of tents. If there is an accident on a cruise, where are we going to put those people?" Marthe questions.
The aforementioned report criticizes "the opacity surrounding the legislation that regulates" these CATEs. In this sense, it points out that "the containment devices form a complex network of bureaucracy that makes it very difficult for migrants to understand what situation they are in, where, who their lawyers are, until when they will remain there ".
At this point, it also includes the CATEs as "spaces of rights violation" because they "facilitate administrative arbitrariness and generate a situation of uncertainty and anguish for migrants, in addition to a feeling of loss of control." Which generates a "strong impact" on the mental health of migrants.
Problems in legal assistance
In this sense, the lawyer of the Immigration Subcommittee of the Lanzarote Bar Association, Irma Ferrer denounces the actions of other lawyers at the time of providing assistance to a migrant. "I cannot criticize if I do not make a criticism of my own colleagues, of the work of the lawyers," Ferrer begins.
The lawyer adds: "We have not come to demand a decent place to offer legal assistance, a decent translation or we have not demanded that they be treated the same as the rest of the defendants." The creation of an Immigration Commission from the Bar Association of the island has served so that the sessions with each defendant go from attending 21 to six migrants in order to make more individualized consultations and be able to detect vulnerable profiles. Compared to group interviews, without privacy and without adequate translators.
Thus, among other achievements, they have managed to be able to interview migrants inside the CATEs, despite the barriers imposed by the National Police, according to Ferrer. In addition to the name of the lawyer circulating in the expulsion order so that each person knows who their representative is and up to four courses have been held training lawyers, as well as a specialized shift in Immigration on the island.
"According to sources consulted, expulsions of people have been detected in less than 72 hours", who had expressed "the will to apply for asylum from the police stations through express deportations", attests the aforementioned report. In this sense, it reflects that this type of returns presents "shortcomings in the safeguarding of rights, such as the right to asylum, legal assistance or effective remedy."
Loueila Mint El Mamy points out that "of all the intelligent measures that there were. The Ministry of the Interior has decided to contain, but immigration is going to continue to occur." Meanwhile, Laetitia Marthe, from the Solidarity Network for the Reception of Migrants in Lanzarote, defends that the images lived in Puerto Naos with people sleeping on the floor or the tents in the CATE clash with "a change in the image of the Island so beautiful and touristy that we have."
Regarding migrant children and minors welcomed in the Canary Islands, the report reveals that "there are obstacles in accessing the asylum procedure for those minors with international protection needs." Meanwhile, it has highlighted "the presence of minors in adult centers and adults in children's centers."
Situation of migration in Morocco
The Report on Human Rights Violations on the Southern Border of the Spanish State 2021-2022 reflects a special section on the human rights situation of migrants in Morocco. "The repression of migration is materialized in control practices especially applied to migrants and black people" in the Alawi country. Raids, detentions and deportations or forced displacements have become "a constant practice in the last decade." This not only affects foreigners in the North African country but also Moroccans who are forced to leave their State.
