One of the problems occurring in Ceuta is that there are not enough police officers to carry out the identifications of the nearly 8,000 irregular immigrants who still remain in the autonomous city, many of them wandering the streets and hiding in the forests. These interviews constitute the first step before detecting possible vulnerabilities, recognizing minors, and seeing if there are cases of possible asylum. But there is a bottleneck in this triage. The PP insists that the solution is not the distribution of these people among the autonomous communities, but “the return and repatriation of Moroccan adults and minors who have entered Spain.” And that involves “strengthening” the Foreign Affairs units deployed to Ceuta and making them work “in triple shifts”.
“We are talking about return, not distribution. This is unquestionable and indisputable,” said the national spokesperson of the main opposition party, Borja Sémper, this Monday after the meeting of the popular Steering Committee.
“We propose that all necessary Foreign Affairs units be transferred to Ceuta so that in three shifts, morning, afternoon, and night, they urgently process repatriation files. There are nearly 10,000 people on the street. There is a public order and health problem; it is not logical to process returns as if it were an ordinary situation. This is an extraordinary situation and the measures must be extraordinary. We must mobilize as many officials as necessary for as long as necessary. They must all return as soon as possible; only then can we say that normality has been restored in Ceuta,” he explained.
“The invasion of Ceuta” was the only topic discussed at the meeting of the top leaders of the PP. The party’s Deputy Secretary of Culture and Sports also spoke of a quadruple crisis. To the “migration crisis,” he added a “national security crisis” – with an “overwhelmed border” -, a “public order crisis” – due to the “insecurity and frustration” that has affected the people of Ceuta – and a “public health crisis,” due to the detection of infectious diseases and health services “under pressure.” To date, the PP does not consider hosting migrants in the 11 autonomous communities it governs. It wants them to return to Morocco as soon as possible.
“Neither alarmism nor denial”
Health is one of the issues that most concerns the popular party, to the point that Alberto Núñez Feijóo has asked Pedro Sánchez to decree a confinement of immigrants diagnosed with infectious diseases such as scabies or tuberculosis, gastroenteritis, and chickenpox, a measure that the Minister of Health, Mónica García, has dismissed as “unjustified” and “excessive.”
Sémper has defended that “the health risk exists” and that “the obligation of any responsible government is to act,” in a scenario where “there is no room for alarmism or denial, only decisions.” “We have the right to ask that the possibility of implementing measures to protect the population be studied. The people of Ceuta are scared and worried and must be given answers,” he reiterated.
Just this Tuesday, three weeks after the start of the crisis, the Public Health Commission of the Ministry of Health will urgently convene the autonomous communities to agree on a vaccine shipment. This Thursday, Minister García will also appear before the Congress of Deputies to explain the health management. The PP is preparing a series of parliamentary questions. It wants to know, among other things, how many cases of tuberculosis, measles, scabies, or hepatitis have been recorded, whether they require preventive isolation, if all infected persons have been located, and if there is a “risk of community transmission.”
“Where is the State?”
The PP also criticizes the Government for not having provided answers to resolve the migration crisis as 25 days have passed since the mass entry into Ceuta. It especially criticizes Sánchez for not interrupting his vacation in Lanzarote – “The Government has managed emergencies in flip-flops and swimwear,” said Sémper – and that some ministers have been slow to travel to the autonomous city. He refers, for example, to the Minister of Health, who did not go until 17 days later despite complaints about the health situation in the area.
“Where is the State?” Sémper has asked several times, accusing the Prime Minister of “using his ministers as a human shield while he hid in La Mareta.”
