On its border, new problems: EU efforts to externalise migration controls

In the early 2000s, after Spain shut down the migration route through its enclaves on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast, Melilla and Ceuta, desperate refugees and migrants began targeting Spain’s Canary Islands, off the West Coast of Africa, using Mauritania as their new launching point. Spain responded by boosting naval patrols off the coast and building a detention centre in Mauritania. The Mauritania facility is the latest example of the “externalization” of Europe’s migration controls to the fringes of the continent and beyond. While the borders between European countries have become more open in recent years, European governments have agreed to a number of external border control policies aimed at stopping migrants and asylum seekers before they enter the European Union (EU).

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