The president of the Junta of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno, and that of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, denounced this Thursday that Pedro Sánchez’s Government “does not provide the means” to expel immigrants settled irregularly in the autonomous city after the jump from Morocco on July 30. The request comes amid a migration crisis and precisely on the same day that a huge National Police and Civil Guard operation cordoned off the Trampolín beach to evict the more than 3,000 sub-Saharan and Maghrebis who occupy it entirely.
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Moreno visits the autonomous city this Thursday, one day after the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo. He is the first regional president to meet with Vivas since the beginning of the migration crisis at the end of July. Moreno and Vivas have criticized the Government for its “inefficiency, incompetence, and poor management” after the “avalanche” of immigrants and have demanded that it “shield” the border with Morocco.
According to the president of Ceuta, currently, between 25 and 30 return files are processed daily for immigrants who still remain in the autonomous city, according to “reliable sources” because the central Government has not wanted to provide them with the “official data.” “At the current pace, they will not leave Ceuta in a year”, warned Vivas.
“I am surprised that 21 days later we do not have official data on how many immigrants remain in Ceuta and the number of files” processed, said Moreno, who demanded that if it is necessary to transfer officials, it should be done to tackle the crisis as soon as possible.
Faced with this “limit and high-risk situation” experienced in Ceuta, its president has trusted that the Government “rethink, react, and provide the necessary means” to end the crisis, strengthening the State Security Forces and Corps, also the health workers, and shielding the border because Morocco “is not a reliable neighbor.”
Committee of the Regions
Moreno, who is vice president of the Committee of the Regions, has committed to bringing the migration crisis to this European Union (EU) body. From September, when the activity of this entity resumes, the autonomous city “must be at the heart of Europe” because what happened at the end of July, with an “invasion” of thousands of migrants, “cannot be tolerated.”
“The European territory that is Ceuta has been violated. This violation of European borders cannot be tolerated,” added Moreno, who asked Sánchez’s Government why it has not activated the request for economic aid from Brussels and the mechanisms of Frontex.
For Moreno, it is surprising that the European mechanisms have been activated and warned that “an image of weakness at the borders cannot be conveyed. It is a very serious mistake. Power vacuums tend to always be filled.”
Upon arriving in Ceuta, Moreno expressed his “affection, understanding, and solidarity with the people of Ceuta in the face of the serious situation they are experiencing. Andalusia is with Ceuta. We appreciate and support each other. We are sister lands,” he said on his X account.
As EL MUNDO has been reporting, the Andalusian Government will have to resolve in the coming weeks a complicated political and legal dilemma derived from the drastic shift it has made in its discourse on foreign minors following its agreement with Vox. The pact that made Moreno’s investiture possible strongly opposes accepting solidarity distributions among autonomous communities of unaccompanied minors. Yet, the Junta signed only two years ago a collaboration agreement with the Autonomous City of Ceuta in which both regional governments commit to mutually assist each other in case of a migration crisis. That agreement is fully in force.
The minors
However, Moreno has avoided assessing any scenario regarding the distribution of minors settled in Ceuta among the autonomous communities and the refusal already expressed by his second vice president and minister of Tourism, Justice, Deregulation, and Local Administration, Manuel Gavira (Vox), to accept them in Andalusia.
For the president of the Junta, the urgent matter is to fulfill the “objective” set by the Government, which is also supported by the European Commission, and that “all” immigrants who entered Ceuta in the avalanche of July 30 be expelled in the “shortest possible time.”
“I believe it would do a disservice if those who have set as their goal to enter our country illegally succeeded,” as it could generate a “call effect with unpredictable consequences in the future,” he warned.
Meanwhile, Gavira reiterated this Thursday the Junta of Andalusia’s opposition “by land, sea, and air” to the distribution of unaccompanied migrant minors announced by the Spanish Government after the Ceuta crisis because these minors “must be with their parents and in their country.”
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