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Number of illegal migrants arriving in Spain drops for first time in over a year
Immigration

Number of illegal migrants arriving in Spain drops for first time in over a year

The Canary Islands, the main migrant gateway to the country, has registered a 34% decrease compared to the arrivals recorded in January 2024

Tuesday, 4 February 2025, 13:05

July 2023. This was the last month in which a drop in the number of illegal migrants to Spain was recorded. Since then the percentage of arrivals has been increasing, making 2024 a year of records being broken and positioning the Canary Islands as the main entry route, both to Spain and to the European Union. However, this trend has changed. Now a significant drop in the number of landings has been recorded. This January, some 32.4% fewer arrivals have been recorded than in the same period a year earlier.

Back in January 2024 the number of illegal migrants reaching the Spanish coast stood at 8,067, but for this first month of 2025 the figure stands at 5,456. The Canary Islands continues to be the region that has rescued the most people thus far with 4,752 arrivals. However, this figure reflects a decrease of 34% compared to that recorded a year earlier for the same period in 2024, when 7,270 people were counted. The only Spanish territory in which there has been an increase in such arrivals is Melilla, after six people (twice as many as one year ago) managed to jump the fence that separates the city from Morocco.

This drop in numbers, published on Monday by Spain's Ministry of the Interior, comes in the midst of the debate to approve a decree that would allow for an extraordinary distribution of unaccompanied foreign minors currently held in the Canary Islands' reception system. For the time being this measure, which was proposed by the Canary Islands and Basque Country regional governments after the reform of article 35 of the law on foreigners failed at the beginning of the summer, is currently being reviewed by the Spanish government's legal services. Once it is approved, it is expected to pass through committee stage with input from child protection experts and representatives from the relevant ministry on children's affairs. This meeting is expected to be held in the second week of February and, if it gains sufficient support, it will reach the Congress of Deputies for MPs to vote.

This reduction in the number of arrivals in Spain contrasts with what has happened in the first month of 2025 in other EU countries. Italy, which last year managed to reduce arrivals by nearly 55%, has started January with a significant increase. In 2024 some 2,759 people reached the Italian coast, but this year has seen nearly twice as many land - 5,511, most of them from Bangladesh. Of these, 377 are unaccompanied foreign minors.

The leader of the regional government for the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, said on Monday that this week will be "decisive" in defining the criteria for the distribution of unaccompanied migrant minors, and that the state attorney general's office will report on the type of legal form to be taken, which is now "preparing the report to see if it can be a decree law or a bill." Clavijo further pointed out that, also during this week, a meeting with representatives from the central ministry of children's affairs is scheduled to be held to run through the criteria to be used for the distribution of these minors to other parts of Spain.

Clavijo also mentioned that the central government minister for territorial policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, has told him that "there is going to be" funding for the rest of the regions to take in minors who are transferred from the Canaries, and that the Spanish government "is committed to providing it." He further commented that the last week's visit by the commission for children and young adolescents to the Canaries, during which they were able to see "at first hand" the situation in El Hierro migrant centre as well as in different centres for minors, together with the agreement on pensions, "gives a little bit of hope for the situation in El Hierro,". He continued: "it gives a little hope that people's rights will be put above political decisions" and that, at least, not the solution that is being sought, which is to modify the law on foreigners, but "at least to free resources from all the current pressure" and to be able to guarantee minors some kind of life and future.

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