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The Canary cage: the making of deportation islands on Spain’s Atlantic border

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Country/Region

07 June 2021

In line with concerning recent EU border control proposals, a deliberate policy of inhumane detention, illegal mobility restrictions and an overreliance on deportation ‘solutions’ is converting the Canary Islands into makeshift deportation waiting rooms and a black hole for human rights.

Over the last year and a half, the Canary Islands have become the centre of another emerging humanitarian and human rights crisis at Europe’s frontier. 2020 saw the arrival of over 23,000 migrants to the Canary Islands, a huge increase compared to the 2,687 who arrived in 2019, and the high rate of arrivals has continued throughout the first few months of 2021. Following what has become a typical trend in Spanish and European border control, the Spanish government has responded to this increase in arrivals with the creation of yet another ‘island cage’ at Europe’s southern borders.

A treacherous route to Europe

Since the beginning of 2020, migrants have risked their lives in growing numbers, journeying from the North West African coast to the Spanish islands in search of a better life in Europe; the onset of the global pandemic has done little to stem this flow. The majority of migrants hail from Morocco, Senegal and Mali, with smaller numbers arriving from Mauritania and various sub-Saharan countries.[1] The journey across hundreds of kilometres of open sea is an incredibly treacherous one that can last anywhere between four to eleven days.

This Atlantic route to Europe has a reputation for being one of the deadliest and the last year and half has proved no exception. The International Organisation for Migration’s (IOM) Missing Migrants project conservatively estimates that in 2020 around 600 migrants died or went missing on the route.[2] In reality, the toll is most likely much higher, with around 2,000 fatalities reported by the Spanish-NGO Caminando Fronteras.[3] According to their estimates, roughly three out of every ten people who attempt this Atlantic route fail to reach their destination alive.

Those who do survive the journey are met by a woefully inadequate European “reception” regime that brutally prioritises migration management and deterrence policies over respect for human rights and humanitarian concern. Rather than reckoning with their direct complicity in this crisis, the Spanish and European authorities seem content to maintain their coercive system of inhumane detention conditions and a dogged drive to deport people.

Reception and grey zone for rights abuse

A very much and, in all likelihood, purposefully underprepared reception system has resulted in the accommodation of migrants in overcrowded and deplorable conditions that violate international law protecting the rights of migrants and detained persons. The Spanish authorities have capitalised on these people’s precarious administrative situation with a flagrant lack of respect for the dignity of those arriving on European shores.

With limited facilities on the islands, migrants were detained in woefully inadequate makeshift reception spaces throughout 2020. For instance, those landing in Gran Canaria were, and many still are, immediately detained on the Muelle de Arguineguín – a large concrete dock converted into a makeshift detention space for new arrivals that has come to be known as the “muelle de la vergüenza” (the dock of shame). Copious reports detail serious overcrowding with no regard for coronavirus health regulations, no guarantees of access to basic sanitation and hygiene including clean water, and numerous health issues such as dehydration and injuries arising from spending hours seated in the same position on an asphalt pier. Rights to legal aid and interpreters have been consistently undermined as lawyers are often inhibited from accessing those on the pier with entrance and exit to the space tightly controlled at all times by local police.

A damning report by Human Rights Watch published last year concluded that “the conditions did not respect people’s dignity or their fundamental rights.”[4] Moreover, the 72-hour statutory detention limit has been continuously violated, including cases of people detained on the dock for more than 20 days. Detaining individuals without legal justification beyond this limit is illegal under national law. These conditions have been vehemently condemned by the Spanish Ombudsman in a recent report,[5] and are in direct contravention of national Spanish, EU and international law regarding the rights of migrants and detained persons.[6]

In a feeble effort to rectify the situation, the Spanish government introduced the “Canary Island Plan” at the beginning of this year, providing 7,000 migrant reception spaces on the islands. Various camps were opened to house migrants, such as the now infamous Las Raíces on Tenerife, an old army barracks.[7] Currently, around 1,000 migrants are housed there in conditions that are a meagre improvement on those faced on the docks. Migrants and rights groups report overcrowding, poor quality and provision of food, and highly inadequate sanitation and health facilities.[8] Some have even gone so far as to label it a “concentration camp” for migrants awaiting their deportation.[9] 

Migrants themselves have continuously protested against the appalling conditions faced on the dock and in the camps. In February, a number took to the streets to protest against conditions and demand transfer to the mainland with many carrying signs stating “Europe or death”.[10] There have also been numerous reports of hunger strikes, such as one announced in February by 450 Moroccans housed in a school in Las Palmas, denouncing their experiences of racism and demanding access to the mainland.[11] Others have opted to take accommodation into their own hands, abandoning the dire conditions faced in the camps, and setting up their own makeshift shelters elsewhere on the islands.[12]

Despite the abundant criticism and protests, little is being done to improve conditions or bring abuses to justice, as migrants are left in a human rights grey zone. Alarms bells rung by rights groups and migrants are continuously met with indifference by those with the power to ensure justice. Following several cases raised against the situation on the Arguineguín dock and in some detention centres last year, the Immigration Prosecutor dismissed claims of rights abuse, stating that the facts “do not constitute any crime,” and that “although the situation of migrants is not optimal, it does not mean that rights are violated.”[13] This trivialisation of abuses in the European reception regime by those with the capacity to bring violations to court reflects a classic anomaly in human rights law, especially within migration contexts. While those who protect rights clamour for justice, those with power to identify responsibility simply claim that no violations have occurred. “Irregularised” migrants arrive to a highly precarious legal situation where many do not consider them worthy of the same rights as citizens. Taking advantage of their precarious position under national law, turning a blind eye becomes a vicious tool of European migration management practice that enables a violent continuation of inhumane conditions at Europe’s borders despite growing evidence of abuse.

Illegal mobility restrictions

The diabolical conditions persisting within the overcrowded reception facilities are a direct consequence of a blockade policy between the islands and mainland Spain designed to prevent migrants from continuing their journey to mainland Europe. Mirroring practices in the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, as well as the islands of Lampedusa and Lesbos, the Spanish government refuses to transfer all but the most vulnerable cases to the mainland where there is more space and better equipped facilities, and inhibits individuals from travelling of their own free will and means.

Migrants meeting all travel and health requirements have increasingly found themselves stopped, and in some cases arrested, as they attempt to board planes leaving for the mainland. Several NGOs have reported a continuous rejection of asylum application papers as valid travel documents, and on 11 December 2020 controls at island airports were extended to preclude the movement of migrants without residence and work permits.[14] The Spanish Ombudsman’s report details complaints received from Senegalese and Moroccan citizens who were prevented from leaving for the peninsula at island airports despite having valid passports, negative PCR tests and relatives willing to take them in on the peninsula.[15] These cases are far from isolated with reports estimating that around 5,000 persons have been prevented from leaving the islands since restrictions were put in place last December.[16]

These measures have little to no legal basis. Firstly, within Spanish and European law, individuals do not need authorisation to exercise their freedom of movement within the interior of a country, nor the Schengen zone. Even under the current health measures, for individuals travelling with a passport or asylum application, a valid change of address and a negative COVID-19 test should be accepted for travel. Moreover, demanding identification from individuals within Spain is prohibited if there are no indications of a criminal infraction. Particularly with regard to asylum, the Spanish Ombudsman has reiterated that asylum seekers have the fundamental right to freedom of movement throughout the entire Spanish territory.[17]

In light of these illegalities, a number of cases have been launched against the restrictions, resulting in six Supreme Court rulings stating that police have no authority to prevent migrants from travelling to the mainland if they have the proper documentation.[18] Despite these rulings, little seems to have changed and migrants continue to claim they are prevented from leaving the islands as before, with the blockade remaining firmly in place.[19]

Even more troubling are allegations that these controls in Canarian airports have involved the use of racial profiling techniques. Many migrants have complained that they are specifically targeted by police officers at airport checks because of their ethnic background. In an investigation of airport controls, the think tank Irídia even reported evidence of identification devices in use at airports that relied on explicit ethnic-racial criteria.[20] They also noted unusual police controls at airport border gates which primarily stopped individuals with a non-white ethnic-racial profile. Wider reports of airport lounges packed with migrants of African origin who have been stopped and refused boarding by police provide further testament to this policy.[21] This practice of racial profiling at the border is a flagrant violation of human rights, repeatedly condemned by the UN in the past.[22]

The official justification for this blockade policy rests largely on the exceptional circumstances of the COVID-19 crisis and the related mobility restrictions in place between the autonomous regions of Spain. For instance, the extension of controls in airports in December last year was justified by national police sources as in line with the health restrictions imposed by various autonomous communities.[23]

However, this justification remains flimsy at best. Firstly, the claim that these are purely health restrictions does not explain the use of racial profiling techniques at island airports clearly targeting individuals of African origin. Moreover, reports suggest that police are using the border controls to check the regularity of individuals’ circumstances, as opposed to checking their health status.[24] Secondly, if the mobility restrictions were designed solely on the basis of health concerns, it would not result in the gathering of immobilised persons in incredibly overcrowded reception facilities with little access to basic health and sanitation services. Rather than a genuine health measure, these restrictions seem to involve using the cover of the current health crisis to impose exceptional, and frankly illegal, measures on migrants of African origin, in order to impede their journey to the European mainland.

The deportation imperative

Far from being motivated by health concerns, the actual logic that underlies this blockade policy is centred on a deportation imperative: the intentional creation of a containment and immobilisation zone at Europe’s frontier, much like what has been seen on Lampedusa and Lesvos, in order to facilitate the rapid deportation of those who arrive.  

In spite of a global pandemic and its contingent mobility restrictions, the deportation of migrants stranded on the Canary Islands to their countries of origin was restarted in the final months of 2020 and flights have been carried out continuously into 2021. The main destinations have been Morocco, with an agreement between the two countries in place since December admitting the return of 80 migrants per week; and, Mauritania.[25] The superficiality of the arguments justifying the blockade policy as a health measure are further laid bare by this continuation of deportation flights in the midst of a health crisis. In a blatant illustration of the double standards at play, the Moroccan government closed its aerial borders with Spain and France for health reasons at the end of March this year, yet it stated that the weekly deportation flights would not be affected, with European migration management clearly taking priority over regional health concerns.[26]

Operating under a migration policy that is centred on what can be termed a deportation imperative (the use of deportation measures as the sole solution to increasing numbers of “irregular” arrivals), combined with an immobilisation of migrants on the Canary Islands through the blockade, the Spanish government is essentially turning the Canary Islands into a deportation waiting room. Prioritising the imperative to deport over basic human rights, the movement of newly arriving migrants from the islands to the peninsula is prevented in order to contain these persons in inhumane conditions, so that they can be deported as quickly as possible.

Deportation has been a key tool for the Spanish and European authorities for some time. As far back as 2003, for instance, Spain has had an agreement with Mauritania permitting the return of Mauritanians and third country nationals arriving irregularly to Spain via Mauritania. When the recent increase in arrivals first began in late 2019, Spanish authorities did not hesitate to initiate regular deportations to Mauritania. This deportation imperative however has proved dangerously unreliable when faced with such large numbers of arrivals, especially in the midst of a global health crisis.

Throughout most of 2020, following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic and the closure of borders, African nations refused to receive deportees. As already mentioned, although some flights were resumed last December, as of 14 April this year, Morocco moved to suspend deportation flights again – at least until 21 May.[27] Meanwhile other countries, such as Senegal, have continued to resist pressure to restart deportation flights suspended since the outbreak of coronavirus.[28] The insistence of the Spanish government to maintain the blockade and rely on deportation solutions when very limited flights are possible has only served to worsen the deplorable conditions faced in the increasingly crowded makeshift reception centres and camps into which migrants are herded.

With both the front and back door closed, migrants are left stranded in an inhumane limbo, which is having a devastating impact on their psychological health. Various reports detail cases of serious self-harm as migrants find themselves helplessly trapped in deplorable conditions. In one report, a Moroccan man cut his leg 27 times upon discovering that his mother needed surgery which she could not afford, another man slashed his belly and a third jumped from a building.[29] These cases illustrate the severe mental deterioration migrants are subjected to within the European migrant reception regime, marooned on the islands facing endless uncertainty. As one Moroccan migrant reported to the Spanish newspaper El País, "We suffer a lot of psychological pressure here… At least a prisoner knows how long his sentence will last. I don't know when I will leave the Canary Islands and, in the meantime, my children are waiting for me to send them money.”[30]

Despite the cessation of deportation flights and reports of suffering, the Spanish government has made no move to seek alternative measures beyond deportation, and instead continues its blockade while pressurising African neighbours to reopen and expand the deportation option. At the beginning of April this year, the Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of the Socialist Party – head of Spain’s self-declared “most progressive government ever” – went on an “African Tour,” visiting the premiers of Angola and Senegal.[31] Since taking office in 2018, he has also visited Algeria, Mali and Mauritania. Similarly, the Spanish Minister of the Interior, Grande-Marlaska made numerous visits to Morocco in 2019 and 2020.[32]

On all of these occasions, migration management and deportation have been key talking points, especially during more recent visits, placing increasing pressure on African nations to resume and expand the reception of deportees. It is evident then, that in spite of the deteriorating situation on the islands, the Spanish government continues to view deportation as its only resort. Content to sit out the suspension of flights and maintain the blockade, Spanish authorities are the principal architects of island cages on the southern frontier where migrants are inhumanely trapped in a state of agonising uncertainty.

Even if return flights were to be resumed in any significant way, in the words of Daniel Arencibia, a human rights lawyer operating on the Canary Islands, “the massive policy of deportation of those who arrived in 2020 is incompatible with human rights”.[33] Relying on deportation alone to alleviate the situation on the islands, even before the current cessation of flights to Morocco, Spanish authorities were having to fill flights with foreigners weekly, a demand that only served to put rights at further risk. Under the pressure of this demand for deportations a blockade policy was introduced, which encouraged the police to increasingly orient their border checks and arrests according to individuals’ racial profiles in order fill flights. Moreover, in the rush to deport, little care seems to be taken to properly consider claims for international protection. The Spanish Ombudsman notes that over 3,200 people had passed through a migrant reception centre in Tenerife and not a single one had requested international protection, an incredibly unlikely occurrence.

EU complicity and the Pact in action

This conversion of the Canary Islands into deportation waiting rooms is not an exclusively Spanish project. Exploitative economic agreements with Africa and the externalising bent of the recent EU Pact on Migration and Asylum directly implicate the European Union in the illegal and inhumane conditions gripping Europe’s Atlantic border.

Last November, the European Parliament renewed a fishing agreement with Senegal which permits French, Spanish and Portuguese boats to extract over 10,000 tonnes of fish annually from Senegalese waters in exchange for €1.7m paid to the Senegalese government.[34] This arrangement enriches the ruling elite in Senegal while impoverishing fisherman as local waters are emptied of fish by the larger European fleets. Faced with vastly diminished opportunities in their home country, these unemployed fishermen are increasingly forced to risk their lives migrating to Europe in a desperate search for alternative means of survival. While Spanish and European authorities paint a picture of an externally imposed crisis that they are struggling to contain, in reality, the EU’s extractive policies in Africa are directly responsible for creating the circumstances that force individuals to migrate.[35]

Moreover, while the Spanish government may be implementing the island cage border measures, they act under the silent guidance and encouragement of EU-ordained border management strategies. Earlier this year, the President of the Canary Islands, speaking at the European Parliament, directly challenged the complicity of the European Union in the management of the situation on the islands, accusing it of converting them into “macrocentres of retention”. Alluding to the limited responsibility taken by other European nations, he attacked the recent EU Pact on Migration and Asylum as “solidarity à la carte.”[36] He further demanded that inter-territorial redistribution mechanisms be strengthened to prevent a management model based on huge, inhumane retention zones in Europe’s border regions. Unfortunately, but unsurprisingly, his protests have fallen on deaf ears, as the EU has maintained a condoning silence on the issue.

In fact, the evolution of EU migration policy over last year not only condones but promotes the practices being used on the Canary Islands. The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum published last September, which outlined a “new approach” to European migration management, proposes a response that very much emulates the approach adopted on the Canary Islands. The introduction of an accelerated “returns border procedure” will see the creation of enclosed retention spaces at the border where migrants are subjected to long-term confinement in order to determine who is entitled to international protection and who should be immediately deported.[37] A number of critics have raised concerns about this heavy and explicit reliance on “the protracted confinement of migrants and asylum seekers in border areas.”[38] It alludes to the conversion of these spaces into ‘extraterritorial processing centres’, where the geographical scope of jurisdiction is manipulated in order to suspend the legal system and create areas where migrants' rights and protections are severely limited.

Building on this approach spelled out in the Pact, a recent strategy on “voluntary” return and reintegration unveiled by the European Commission last month explicitly proposes the expansion of detention measures in order to facilitate faster returns. The proposed “return borders procedures” would subject migrants arriving at the European frontiers to mandatory detention for up to 10 months, the logic being that the use of detention “can increase the uptake of voluntary returns at early stages of the return process” by making individuals “available and more willing to cooperate with the authorities.”[39] In other words, the aim is to subject migrants to long-term, inhumane detention in order to make them easier to deport – as a recent article from Statewatch put it, “this is perhaps best-translated as 'locked up and out of options'.”[40]

The parallels between these evolving EU border policy proposals and the practices deployed on Spain’s Atlantic islands are painstakingly obvious. The strategy of confinement at the border in a legal grey zone combined with deportation pressures currently being carried out against migrants arriving on the Canary Islands can be understood as nothing more than the first case of the EU Pact being put brutally into practice. Consequently, the President of the Canary Islands was right to highlight the complicity of the EU in the crisis consuming the islands, but he fell short in simply attacking the indifferent “solidarity à la carte” of the Pact. The Spanish management of its Atlantic border is not a failure of EU policy. On the contrary it is the result of a consciously devised strategy of border management enshrined within the Pact and in the three decades of EU border control policies that precede it. Rather than breaking from prior inhumane migration management approaches, the Pact will consolidate the informal practices developed in Lampedusa and Lesvos into the official system of European border control.

The Canary cage: the rule rather than the exception

In their creation of a cage for migrants on the Canary Islands, Spanish and European officials continue to repeat their crimes of the past, and are directly complicit both in the immediate abuses and their underlying causes. Spanish authorities turn a blind eye to the atrocious conditions on the islands, as they refuse to bring abuses to justice and consciously fail to alleviate future suffering by maintaining an illegal blockade and insisting on deportation solutions rather than exploring further options such as redistribution within the Spanish and European territory. Meanwhile, the European Union’s extractive economic policies in African nations have a heavy hand in forcing many to migrate. Until a fairer political economy is developed, Europe will continue to face self-inflicted ‘migratory crises’. More importantly, European authorities deliberately sustain and develop a brutal pattern of border control policy that encourages member states to prioritise migration management over human rights. Unless a more humane approach to border control is developed, the atrocities seen in Lesbos, Lampedusa and now the Canary Islands will continue.

Unfortunately, there are few signals suggesting that European and Spanish authorities intend to break with their practices anytime soon. Despite much of the rhetoric, the approach adopted on the islands is not one of “crisis response”. On the contrary, much of the infrastructure and underlying logic is here to stay. Earlier this month, it was confirmed that the 7,000 places installed on the islands would be made permanent in order to deal with future influxes of migrants. Rather than explore redistribution options within the islands, the Spanish government is opting to maintain the inhumane containment centres on its border. As one local politician responding to the news put it, such a move clearly demonstrates that “they [the central government] want to turn the islands into a prison for immigrants.”[41] Ultimately, the use of island cages where arriving migrants are subjected to inhumane and illegal conditions and detention in order to facilitate their deportation has become firmly cemented as central tenet of Spanish and European border control. No longer an informal or crisis response tool, it is an accepted policy of migration management. The Canary cages that have been set up on the Atlantic route to Europe are just the latest testament to this fact.

Samuel Allan

Image: Jose Mesa, CC BY 2.0

Endnotes

[1] A gateway re-opens: the growing popularity of the Atlantic route, as told by those who risk it, Mixed Migration Centre, February 2021, https://mixedmigration.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/160_a_gateway_reopens_research_report.pdf

[2] Irregular migration towards Europe; Western Africa – Atlantic route, IOM, https://migration.iom.int/system/tdf/reports/IOM%20-%20Flow%20from%20Western%20African%20Route%20-%20November%202020%20-%20EN_Final%20(1).pdf?file=1&type=node&id=10170

[3] G. Vega, La ‘ruta canaria’ supuso el 85% de las muertes de migrantes a España en 2020, según la ONG Caminando Fronteras, El País, 29 December 2020, https://elpais.com/espana/2020-12-29/la-ruta-canaria-supuso-el-85-de-las-muertes-de-migrantes-a-espana-en-2020-segun-la-ong-caminando-fronteras.html

[4] Spain: Respect rights of people arriving by sea to Canary Islands, Human Rights Watch, 11 November 2020, https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/11/11/spain-respect-rights-people-arriving-sea-canary-islands

[5] El defenso reclama que se agilicen los traslados de personas migrantes a la peninsula, Defensor del pueblo, 3 March 2021, https://www.defensordelpueblo.es/noticias/migracion-en-canarias/

[6] Vulneración de derechos humanos en la Frontera Sur: Canarias y Melilla, Irídia,  https://iridia.cat/es/publicaciones/vulneracions-de-drets-humans-a-la-frontera-sud-canaries-i-melilla/

[7] The UK has also been housing asylum-seekers in old barracks in the name of “urgency”: An inspection of the use of contingency asylum accommodation – key findings from site visits to Penally Camp and Napier Barracks, Gov.uk, 8 March 2021, https://www.gov.uk/government/news/an-inspection-of-the-use-of-contingency-asylum-accommodation-key-findings-from-site-visits-to-penally-camp-and-napier-barracks

[8] A. G. Pérez-Nievas, Canarias: la infinita espera, Amnesty International, 4 May 2021, https://www.es.amnesty.org/en-que-estamos/blog/historia/articulo/canarias-la-infinita-espera/

[9] Los migrantes se hartan del campamento de Las Raíces, en Tenerife: frío, barro y poca comida, El Diario, 9 February 2021, https://www.eldiario.es/canariasahora/migraciones/migrantes-hartan-campamento-raices-tenerife-frio-barro-comida_1_7204479.html

[10] M. Martín, Tension spreads through migrant shelters in Spain’s Canary Islands, El País, 8 February 2021, https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2021-02-08/tension-spreads-through-migrant-shelters-in-spains-canary-islands.html

[11] Inmigrantes acogidos en un colegio de Las Palmas harán huelga de hambre, El Mundo, 6 February 2021, https://www.elmundo.es/espana/2021/02/06/601e9640fc6c83bf568b45b1.html

[12] B. Suarez, Abandoning government camp, migrants shelter on Gran Canaria cliff side, Reuters, 11 March 2021, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-europe-migrants-spain-idUSKBN2B31RG

[13] N. G. Vargas, La Fiscalía cambió de criterio sobre el hacinamiento de inmigrantes en Arguineguín sustituyendo al fiscal que veía delito por otra que consiguió el archivo, El Diario, 22 April 2021, https://www.eldiario.es/canariasahora/migraciones/fiscalia-cambio-criterio-hacinamiento-inmigrantes-arguineguin-sustituyendo-fiscal-veia-delito-consiguio-archivo_1_7844413.html

[14] Vulneración de derechos humanos en la Frontera Sur: Canarias y Melilla, Irídia,  https://iridia.cat/es/publicaciones/vulneracions-de-drets-humans-a-la-frontera-sud-canaries-i-melilla/; Informe 2020 Frontera Sur, SJM, https://sjme.org/docs/informe-2020-frontera-sur/ / G. Sanchéz, El Gobierno ahora sí impide la salida de migrantes de Canarias por su cuenta: “Todo está cerrado”, El Diario, 19 December 2020,  https://www.eldiario.es/desalambre/gobierno-ahora-si-impide-salida-migrantes-canarias-cuenta-cerrado_1_6517256.html

[15] El defenso reclama que se agilicen los traslados de personas migrantes a la peninsula, Defensor del pueblo, 3 March 2021, https://www.defensordelpueblo.es/noticias/migracion-en-canarias/

[16] Un juez ordena a la Policía que no impida a los migrantes viajar desde Canarias a la Península, RTVE, 14 April 2021, https://www.rtve.es/noticias/20210414/juez-ordena-policia-deje-migrantes-viajar-desde-canarias/2085918.shtml

[17] El defenso reclama que se agilicen los traslados de personas migrantes a la peninsula, Defensor del pueblo, 3 March 2021, https://www.defensordelpueblo.es/noticias/migracion-en-canarias/

[18] https://www.rtve.es/noticias/20210414/juez-ordena-policia-deje-migrantes-viajar-desde-canarias/2085918.shtml  / Nueva sentencia a favor de la libre circulación de solicitantes de asilo en Ceuta y Melilla, CEA[R], 12 May 2021, https://www.cear.es/nuevo-a-favor-de-la-libre-circulacion-de-las-personas-que-solicitan-asilo-en-ceuta-y-melilla/

[19] I. O. Viera, Continúa el bloqueo de inmigrantes en los aeropuertos pese a la sentencia, Canarias 7, 17 April 2021, https://www.canarias7.es/politica/continua-bloqueo-inmigrantes-20210417191450-nt.html

[20] Vulneración de derechos humanos en la Frontera Sur: Canarias y Melilla, Irídia,  https://iridia.cat/es/publicaciones/vulneracions-de-drets-humans-a-la-frontera-sud-canaries-i-melilla/

[21] G. Sanchéz, El Gobierno ahora sí impide la salida de migrantes de Canarias por su cuenta: “Todo está cerrado”, El Diario, 19 December 2020,  https://www.eldiario.es/desalambre/gobierno-ahora-si-impide-salida-migrantes-canarias-cuenta-cerrado_1_6517256.html

[22] Communication no. 1493/2006 : Human Rights Committee, 96th session, 13-31 July 2009 : views   https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/662897/?ln=en

[23] G. Sanchéz, El Gobierno ahora sí impide la salida de migrantes de Canarias por su cuenta: “Todo está cerrado”, El Diario, 19 December 2020,  https://www.eldiario.es/desalambre/gobierno-ahora-si-impide-salida-migrantes-canarias-cuenta-cerrado_1_6517256.html

[24] M. Martín, El marroquí que abrió la primera brecha al bloqueo de inmigrantes en Canarias, El País, 21 April 2021, https://elpais.com/espana/2021-04-21/el-marroqui-que-abrio-la-primera-brecha-al-bloqueo-de-inmigrantes-en-canarias.html

[25] Morocco: https://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/marruecos-espa%C3%B1a--previsi%C3%B3n-_vuelos-de-deportaci%C3%B3n-pactados-entre-espa%C3%B1a-y-marruecos-acaban-en-el-aai%C3%BAn/46415954 ; Mauritania: https://elpais.com/espana/2020-11-05/interior-reactiva-las-deportaciones-a-mauritania-desde-canarias.html

[26] Los vuelos de deportación no cesarán pese al cierre marroquí de espacio aéreo, Canarias 7, 31 March 2021, https://www.canarias7.es/canarias/vuelos-deportacion-cesaran-20210331204210-nt.html

[27] Paralizados los vuelos de deportación de marroquíes desde Canarias, El Diario, 14 April 2021, https://www.eldiario.es/desalambre/marruecos-suspende-vuelos-deportacion-emigrantes-canarias_1_7805609.html

[28] C. E. Cué, Senegal se resiste a garantizar los vuelos de repatriación de migrantes desde España, El País, 9 April 2021, https://elpais.com/espana/2021-04-09/senegal-se-resiste-a-garantizar-los-vuelos-de-repatriacion-de-migrantes-para-aliviar-la-presion-en-canarias.html

[29] C. Oberti, Canary Islands: Migrants turn to hunger strikes, self harm, InfoMigrants, 16 February 2021, https://www.infomigrants.net/en/post/30216/canary-islands-migrants-turn-to-hunger-strikes-self-harm

[30] M. Martín, Tension spreads through migrant shelters in Spain’s Canary Islands, El País, 8 February 2021, https://english.elpais.com/spanish_news/2021-02-08/tension-spreads-through-migrant-shelters-in-spains-canary-islands.html

[31] C. E. Cué, J Naranjo, Sánchez centra su primera gran gira Africana en la migración y la entrada de empresas españolas, El País, 8 April 2021, https://elpais.com/espana/2021-04-07/sanchez-centra-su-primera-gran-gira-africana-en-la-migracion-y-la-entrada-de-empresas-espanolas.html

[32] F. Peregil, M. González, Marlaska pide a Marruecos más control para evitar la salida de pateras a Canarias, El País, 21 November 2020, https://elpais.com/espana/2020-11-20/marlaska-pide-a-marruecos-un-mayor-control-de-sus-costas-para-evitar-la-salida-de-cayucos-a-canarias.html

[33] Private correspondence with Daniel Arencibia.

[34] Parliament backs the renewed fisheries partnership with Senegal, European Parliament, 11 November 2020, https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/press-room/20201111IPR91303/parliament-backs-the-renewed-fisheries-partnership-with-senegal

[35] Atlantic Moria in the making in overcrowded Gran Canaria camp, Statewatch, 24 November 2020, https://www.statewatch.org/analyses/2020/atlantic-moria-in-the-making-in-overcrowded-gran-canaria-camp/

[36] J. Sanhermelando, El Presidente de Canarias pide a la UE no convertir a las Islas en un “macrocentro” migratorio, El Español, 1 March 2021, https://www.elespanol.com/espana/20210301/presidente-canarias-ue-no-islas-macrocentro-migratorio/562694751_0.html

[37] G. Campesi, The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum and the dangerous multiplication of ‘anomalous zones’  for migration management, Asile, 27 Novemner 2020, https://www.asileproject.eu/the-eu-pact-on-migration-and-asylum-and-the-dangerous-multiplication-of-anomalous-zones-for-migration-management/

[38] Campesi, The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum and the dangerous multiplication of ‘anomalous zones’  for migration management.

[39] Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council; the EU strategy on voluntary return and reintegration, 27 April 2021, https://193.109.54.101/pub/ECD/4339911_EN_ACT_part1_v7.docx

[40] EU: Detention at the borders to increase "voluntary" return of migrants, Statewatch, 5 May 2021, https://www.statewatch.org/news/2021/may/eu-detention-at-the-borders-to-increase-voluntary-return-of-migrants/

[41] L. Gutiérrez, El Gobierno confirma que los centros de acogida de migrantes serán permanentes, Canarias 7, 2 May 2021, https://www.canarias7.es/politica/gobierno-confirma-centros-20210502023258-ntvo.html