Last updated: May 2009
Spain Country Profile
Introduction
Detention policy
Migration to Spain is a relatively recent phenomenon. During the Franco regime and through the mid-1980s, Spain was a net emigration state. Following accession to the European Community in 1986, and particularly after provisional border controls were lifted in the 1990s, Spain became a key destination and transit route for migrants seeking to enter Western Europe (Bodas 2006). Strong economic growth and labour needs in the 2000s further spurred immigration to the country (Business Week 2007). According to the National Statistics Institute, by 2008, Spain’s foreign-born population had risen to 5.2 million compared to 750,000 in 1999 (Donadio et al 2009).
Despite these migratory pressures, Spain is generally considered an exception to broader European trends on immigration, showing increased tolerance, a greater enthusiasm with regard to immigration, and a stronger acceptance of multiculturalism in opinion polls (Triandafyllidou 2000; Business Week 2007). But this reputation has been challenged in recent years as Spain has found itself confronted with increasingly larger waves of undocumented immigrants and asylum seekers abandoning their homes in sub-Saharan Africa and making there way to Spanish enclaves in North Africa and the Canary Islands, leading to sometimes violent encounters between authorities and immigrants (BBC 2005).
In late 2005, for example, when the Spanish exclaves of Melilla and Ceuta on the Mediterranean coast of Morocco were confronted with a surge of migrants trying to enter their territory, Spanish authorities reacted forcefully. According to one account, “Police from Spain’s Guardia Civil shot rubber bullets at the migrants from close range, beat them, and forcibly pushed them back through the fence into Morocco, according to testimony provided by migrants to human rights groups. Some eyewitnesses reported that migrants clambering through barbed wire were at times fired upon simultaneously by authorities on both sides of the fence” (Flynn 2006).
Detention policy. The regulations regarding the detention of migrants in Spain are established in Organic Law 4/2000. The law does not specify which particular agency can detain irregular non-citizens for purposes of deportation, providing only that detention can be undertaken by a government authority or its agents for a maximum of 72 hours prior to referral to a judge to authorise the confinement of an irregular migrant at an officially designated detention centre (Article 61.1.d. of Organic Law 4/2000). Migrant detention centres cannot be penitentiaries. Migrants can only be detained under the following conditions: (1) for purposes of expulsion from the country because of alleged violations listed under Article 53 and 54 of the Organic Law 4/2000, including being on Spanish territory without proper authorisation, posing a threat to public order, and/or participating in clandestine migration; (2) when a judge issues a judicial order for detention in cases where authorities are unable to carry out a deportation order within 72 hours of its having been issued; (3) when a non-citizen fails to depart the country within the prescribed time limit after being issued a deportation order.
A detained migrant cannot be held longer than is necessary for expulsion to take place, with maximum detention period being 40 days (Article 62.2 of Organic Law 4/2000). Children may not be held in detention centres and are to be referred to Protection of Minors services, unless a judicial authority, the Attorney General’s office, and the parent(s) of the child (who must also be detained) in question request and agree to be accommodated together in a detention centre that contains appropriate facilities for family accommodation (Article 62.3 of Organic Law 4/2000).
Detainees are to receive in a timely manner written information on their rights and obligations, the functioning of the centre, disciplinary norms and the methods to present complaints or petitions in a language they can understand upon entry into a detention centre. Any complaints or petitions will be presented to the director of the centre, who will, in turn, respond, or redirect to the appropriate authority. Notices of expulsion, devolution, or return must be communicated with the consulate of the national detained, as well as to family members or others residing in Spain if so requested by the detainee (Articulo 62 bis. of Organic Law 4/2000).
Detention infrastructure. Spain has a network of migrant detention centres called “centros de internamiento de extranjeros,” which are located mostly in Andalusia, the Canary Islands, and major cities. An active NGO network and the National Ombudsperson (“Defensor del Pueblo”) regularly report on conditions in the centres. Unaccompanied minors are housed in children’s shelters (“centros de acogida de menores”) (DPE 2007, APDHA 2008).
There are nine official detention centres located in Barcelona, Las Palmas (two centres), Tenerife, Malaga, Madrid, Valencia, Murcia, and Algeciras. In addition, the Lanzarote airport terminal has a transit zone detention centre, which has a capacity to accommodate an estimated 200 people (DPE 2007, APDHA 2008).
Spain also makes use of several facilities it calls “ad hoc” because they are typically used only during the annual immigration surges in the Canary Islands and two north African exclaves. These facilities, which are otherwise not used as detention centres, include former military bases, retrofitted abandoned buildings, and tarps placed over parking lots. Spain has been criticised for providing very poor conditions at these ad hoc centres, as well as for not adhering to its non-refoulement obligations and not ensuring the wellbeing and safety of detainees at these sites (Crépeau, et al. 2007). Spain has made an effort to build and/or renovate dedicated detention centres for use during migration peaks, namely at the Port of Almeria and the Las Canteras detention centre at La Laguna, Canary Islands (DPE 2007, APDHA 2008).
Spain has worked closely with African states and European Union partners to coordinate border and interdiction measures (De Witte et al 2007; Flynn 2006). In one case in 2005, media outlets reported that Spanish authorities aided Mauritania in establishing a detention centre in a former school house in Nouadhibou, Mauritania, that was aimed at confining migrants transiting Mauritania to take boats heading to the Canary Islands (Flynn 2006). According to a 2008 report by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), “The delegation of the Working Group visited the migrants’ centre in Nouadhibou, which is in fact a former school that has been converted into a detention centre. According to the authorities, this is not a prison, but a ‘social’ centre that houses foreigners for very short periods (a week at most) pending their repatriation. The authorities maintain that the police can only arrest illegal aliens (undocumented, without visas) and persons who are caught in the act of attempting to embark for Europe by sea (shipwrecked persons or those found at sea)” (WGAD 2008).
Facts and figures. While economic challenges stemming from the global finance crisis have led to major difficulties for migrants—with unemployment among immigrants reaching 69 percent, three times the national average (Govan 2008)—regular reports of clandestine migration from Africa continued apace in 2008 and early 2009. Spain has 5 million immigrants, 11 percent of its population (Donadio, et al. 2009), and an estimated 300,000 irregular immigrants (Australian 2009). Most irregular migrants in Spain are from sub-Saharan regions of Africa (De Witte, et al., 2007).
Between 2004 and 2007, 370,000 persons were deported, an increase of 43.4 percent compared to the previous four-year period. Over the same period, Spain increased the number of border police and frontier personnel by 25 percent. In 2007, 55,938 persons were deported, up 4 percent compared to a year earlier, despite the fact that the number of irregular migrants reaching the Canary Islands fell by 61 percent that year (MIR 2008).
