There are headlines that do not need interpretation. It is enough to read them. A Moroccan immigrant shouts: "Long live Pedro Sánchez and long live Spain!". Perhaps it is the phrase that best summarizes the current government's immigration policy.
For years, the pull effect has been denied. It has been dismissed as exaggeration, alarmist discourse, or a political argument. However, when those who want to come to Spain identify a president with the ease of entering our country, theory gives way to an uncomfortable reality.
Ceuta is once again the scene of migratory pressure that overwhelms the response capacity. A Spanish city that, once again, feels alone while speeches, but not solutions, follow one another from Madrid. The border becomes the symbol of a State incapable of exercising the control that any sovereign nation is obliged to guarantee.
And the Canary Islands know this reality very well.
Our archipelago has been enduring unprecedented migratory pressure for years. Overcrowded centers, strained resources, overwhelmed municipalities, and a citizenry that observes how responses arrive late or, simply, do not arrive. The Canary Islands have shown exemplary solidarity, but solidarity cannot become an excuse for state inaction.
While Ceuta experiences new episodes of tension and the Canary Islands continue to endure an extraordinary situation, Pedro Sánchez is already preparing—or so it seems—his beach bag to enjoy a few days of rest in Lanzarote.
What a contrast.
While some count rafts, others count the days until vacation.
While the State Security Forces and Corps make an extraordinary effort to protect our borders, in La Moncloa there seems to be time to think about hammocks, umbrellas, and sunsets over the Atlantic.
Perhaps from the sun lounger it is easier to talk about solidarity than border control. Perhaps the sound of the sea helps not to hear the demands of Ceuta or the weariness of a Canary Islands that has been demanding a firm and effective response for too long.
Lanzarote is an extraordinary destination. No one disputes that the President of the Government has the right to rest, highly questioned by the major corruption scandals. What is difficult to understand is that he can do so as if nothing were happening, while one of Europe's main external borders remains under constant pressure and while the Canary Islands continue to bear a burden that does not correspond to them to assume alone.
Spain needs a serious, orderly, and effective migration policy. A policy that combines humanity with firmness, solidarity with control, and international cooperation with compliance with the law.
Because protecting borders is not going against anyone. It is protecting the rule of law, guaranteeing legal immigration, and combating the mafias that profit from human desperation.
And if the cry of "Long live Pedro Sánchez and long live Spain!" ends up becoming the best slogan for the pull effect, perhaps it is time to stop denying the problem and start, once and for all, to face it with responsibility.
Of course, after the holidays. As long as there is a free sun lounger.
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