The State Attorney General’s Office warns in its report for the year 2025 that the “extremely restrictive position” of Morocco and Algeria is one of the main factors frustrating the expulsions of foreign citizens from Spanish territory.
“Thus, Morocco only accepts repatriation if the person concerned presents a valid original passport, a document that many convicts deliberately hide, and Algeria, for its part, practically does not document expulsions, to the point that in some provinces this route is considered practically unfeasible,” details the Public Prosecutor’s Office in its annual report.
According to the Prosecutor’s Office, “the effective execution of expulsions […] continues to be hindered by persistent structural problems that, far from decreasing, have consolidated as one of the main factors compromising the real effectiveness of this legal instrument,” a reality that is once again highlighted, year after year, in the various territorial reports.
The “lack of cooperation” from the two North African countries was already pointed out by the Prosecutor’s Office in its 2024 report. On this occasion, the Public Prosecutor considers that the “limited consular cooperation” and the “documentation deficit” are the main factors frustrating expulsions.
Furthermore, among other causes of these delays, the document includes “the failure to locate the investigated or convicted person,” “the non-resolution of the expulsion in a sentence and its delay to the execution phase,” or “the existence of other pending criminal responsibilities,” among others. It also refers to the “collapse suffered by the judicial bodies” or simply “that the sentencing body does not promptly communicate the conviction to the government authority.”
As the only example of positive development, the Prosecutor’s Office report cites the case of Segovia: “Of 16 expulsion requests, 14 were authorized and 13 of them were effectively executed, demonstrating that when administrative and documentary elements converge properly, expulsion remains an effective tool.”
15% more expulsion reports
These types of obstacles occurred in a context in which expulsion reports increased by 15.2% compared to the previous year, despite the decrease in the number of arrivals by irregular access during 2025. These entries were 27.8% less than in 2024. Thus, the Public Prosecutor’s Office reports that last year 1,287 reports related to expulsions of foreign citizens involved in criminal proceedings were issued, compared to 1,117 issued in 2024, “thus consolidating the upward trend already started in 2023.”
Regarding their territorial distribution, the report notes that in 2025 the highest volumes of activity were concentrated in Madrid (219), Gipuzkoa (100), Málaga (123), and Asturias (136).
Article 89 of the Penal Code establishes that a prison sentence of more than one year can be replaced by expulsion from the territory. Thus, the data from the State Attorney General’s Office corresponding to the 2025 fiscal year show that these requests maintain a “clearly upward” trend. “Thus, if in 2023 there were 4,144 requests and in 2024 this figure rose to 4,656, in 2025 5,551 requests were reached,” the report indicates. This represents an increase of 19.2% compared to 2024; 34% compared to 2023, consolidating “a continuous upward trend in the use of this measure, especially in proceedings for crimes against property, road safety, or related to the maintenance of public order.”
Likewise, the Prosecutor’s Office highlights that in 2025 there was an “increase in voluntary expulsion requests by the convicted person” during the execution phase of their sentence. This “emerging phenomenon” occurred especially in Madrid, Navarra, and Catalonia, “even when the sentence did not originally provide for it.” The possibility of executing an expulsion under this assumption is being studied, given the doubts it has raised in the Madrid Prosecutor’s Office.
“To this quantitative evolution is added an increase in the activity carried out in the different phases of the criminal process, so during 2025, prosecutors made 481 requests for substitute expulsion during the sentencing process and another 700 in the execution phase.”
