Spain: New Gateway to Europe for Mass-Migration

by Thomas Paul Wiederholen
August 1, 2018 at 5:00 am

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12792/spain-mass-migration

Translations of this item:

Spain's socialist government, under Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, has promised free healthcare to migrants and says it will investigate every asylum claim individually.
"[A] majority of irregular migrants rescued in the Central Mediterranean are most likely not refugees in the sense of the Geneva Convention, given that some 70 % come from countries or regions not suffering from violent conflicts or oppressive regimes." — From a 2017 report by the European Commission.
"We have created refugee shelters for tens of thousands of people, but there are hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants in our country. This has heavily impaired the security situation. They include terrorists, criminals, and human traffickers who do not care about human rights. It's horrible." — Libyan leader Fayez al-Sarraj.

On July 26, some 800 migrants from sub-Saharan Africa violently stormed the border fence between Morocco, where they were living illegally, and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. According to Spanish authorities:

"In an attempt to stop the Guardia Civil getting close to the break-in area, the migrants ... [pelted] officers with plastic containers of excrement and quicklime, sticks and stones, as well as using aerosols as flame-throwers."

Many people were wounded in the clash, and 602 migrants succeeded in entering Spanish territory.

Pictured: A section of the border fence between Morocco and the Spanish enclave of Ceuta. (Image source: David Ramos/Getty Images)

Two weeks earlier, the rescue ship Aquarius, operated by the French NGO Sos Méditerranée, picked up 629 Sub-Saharan migrants off the coast of Libya. After both Italy and Malta refused to take in the migrants, with Italian Interior Minister Matteo Salvini declaring, "No to human trafficking, no to the business of illegal immigration," Spain welcomed the ship, and two other vessels carrying illegal migrants, at the port of Valencia.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, the head of Spain's newly-formed socialist government -- which has promised free healthcare to the migrants and says it will investigate every asylum claim individually -- said in mid-June: "It is our duty to help avoid a humanitarian catastrophe and offer a safe port to these people, to comply with our human rights obligations."

According to a July 27 report about Spain in The Telegraph:

"The country is now the largest gateway for migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe, with 20,992 people landing on its shores so far this year... Arrivals to Italy now trail Spain by almost 3000 - a gap that just a week ago was 200."

This, the report says, has completely "overwhelmed" the Spanish coastguard, which is issuing an urgent call for additional resources to help deal with the massive influx.

According to a 2017 report by the European Commission:

"The geographic distribution clearly reveals that a majority of irregular migrants rescued in the Central Mediterranean are most likely not refugees in the sense of the Geneva Convention, given that some 70 % come from countries or regions not suffering from violent conflicts or oppressive regimes."

Absorbing the large numbers of migrants is not the only problem that Spain has to contend with, however. According to a December 2016 report in the Financial Times, based on confidential reports it obtained, the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex) accused some charitable organizations that support rescues in the Mediterranean of collaborating with human traffickers. This claim was also made by the pan-European think tank, Gefira, which posted a YouTube video listing the NGOs that have been abetting – regardless of their "high-minded intentions" – the criminal practice of smuggling people into Europe for financial gain.

According to The Independent:

"At the last European Council summit in Brussels at the end of June, EU national leaders agreed on the need to set up secure centres to process asylum claims, as well as agreeing a raft of hardline stances on migrants – such as condemning NGO-operated rescue boats operating off the Libyan coast."

...

"Leaders also in principle agreed another proposal for "disembarkation platforms" based in North Africa where EU officials could process asylum claims outside EU territory ..."

However, despite the agreement between EU members, "no north African country has yet agreed to host migrant screening centres to process refugee claims," according to Dimitris Avramopoulos, the European commissioner for migration.

The Speaker of Egypt's House of Representatives, Ali Abdel Aal, told the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag on July 1, "EU reception facilities for migrants in Egypt would violate the laws and constitution of our country."

Abd al-Aal recalled that a high number of migrants are already living in his country. "We already have about ten million refugees from Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Palestine, Sudan, Somalia and other countries," said Ab al-Aal. In Egypt, all refugees have a right to health care and education. "This means that our capacities are already exhausted today. It is therefore important that Egypt receives support from Germany and the EU."

In an interview with the German news outlet Bild on July 19, Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj said:

"We have created refugee shelters for tens of thousands of people, but there are hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants in our country. This has heavily impaired the security situation. They include terrorists, criminals, and human traffickers who do not care about human rights. It's horrible. In order to improve the situation, we must fight these structures. But we also need more international help for this. It begins with our country's borders. It is imperative that they be better controlled."

...

"We are strictly against Europe officially placing illegal migrants who are no longer wanted in the EU in our country. We also won't agree on any deals with EU money about taking in more illegal migrants. The EU should rather talk to the countries that people are coming from and should put pressure on these countries instead. There won't be any deals with us.

"I am very surprised that while nobody in Europe wants to take in migrants anymore they are asking us to take in further hundreds of thousands."

In an article for Gatestone in March 2018, Uzay Bulut sheds light on why the migrant crisis has become a problem that many European governments are beginning to recognize: "demographic jihad."

Bulut cites Turkish MP Alparslan Kavaklıoğlu, a member of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), and the head of the parliament's Security and Intelligence Commission, who stated:

"... Europe is going through a time that is out of the ordinary. Its population is declining and aging... So, people coming from outside get the jobs there. But Europe has this problem. All of the newcomers are Muslim. From Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey. Those who come from these places are Muslim. It is now at such a level that the most popular name in Brussels, Belgium is Mohammed... [If this trend continues], the Muslim population will outnumber the Christian population in Europe... Europe will be Muslim. We will be effective there, Allah willing. I am sure of that."

The Turkish leadership's assessment echoes a sermon delivered at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem on September 11, 2015 (the 14th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks) by Imam Sheikh Muhammad Ayed, who stated, in part:

"They [Westerners] have lost their fertility... We will give them fertility! We will breed children with them, because we shall conquer their countries. Whether you like it or not, oh Germans, oh Americans, oh French, Oh Italians, and all those like you. Take the refugees! We shall soon collect them in the name of the coming Caliphate... We will say to you: These are our sons. Send them or we will send our armies to you."

The act of migration has a strong basis in the Qu'ran. For example, Verse 9:20 states:

"The ones who have believed, emigrated and striven in the cause of Allah with their wealth and their lives are greater in rank in the sight of Allah. And it is those who are the attainers [of success]."

Verse 22:58 states:

"And those who emigrated for the cause of Allah and then were killed or died - Allah will surely provide for them a good provision. And indeed, it is Allah who is the best of providers."

None of the above, however, appears to have put a dent in the policies or ideology of the left-wing parties supporting the new Spanish government. On June 29, following the European summit, Sanchez tweeted:

"...The EU is beginning to move in the right direction: to give a European perspective to a European challenge such as migration."

Sanchez was correct, but for all the wrong reasons. The "European perspective" that he and fellow EU members should be embracing is that of democracy and freedom, not one that allows the unfettered entry of millions of penniless and unskilled illegal migrants, among whom are radical Islamists whose beliefs are antithetical to European values.

In case Sanchez has not been paying attention, the influx of illegal immigrants from the Middle East and Africa has been taking a serious toll on Europe. According to a recent Heritage Foundation report:

"Over the past four years, 16 percent of Islamist plots in Europe featured asylum seekers or refugees... Radicalization of plotters generally occurred abroad although in the most recent plots, more commonly within Europe itself. Europe's response to migration flows has been inadequate and inadvertently increased the terrorist threat dramatically..."

In the book Europe All Inclusive by former Czech President Václav Klaus, co-authored by the Arabic-speaking economist Jiří Weigl, the authors sum up the role that the Left plays in the migrant crisis:

"Europe, and especially its 'integrated' part, is riddled with hypocrisy, pseudo-humanism and other dubious concepts. The most dangerous of them are the currently fashionable, and ultimately suicidal, ideologies of multiculturalism and humanrightism. Such ideologies push millions of people towards resignation when it comes to concepts like home, motherland, nation and state. These ideologies promote the notion that migration is a human right, and that the right to migrate leads to further rights and entitlements including social welfare hand-outs for migrants... Europe is weakened by the leftist utopia of trying to transform a continent that was once proud of its past into an inefficient solidaristic state, turning its inhabitants from citizens into dependent clients."

As the "largest gateway" for migrants now entering Europe, Spain has a particularly great responsibility to wake up to and deal with reality.

Thomas Paul Wiederholen is based in Europe.

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Comment on this item

20 Reader Comments

G. Donovan • Aug 5, 2018 at 12:39

Another country destroying what former citizens have created in the false claim of "being humanitarian." World War III is being fought now and if everyone does not begin to see this clearly all democracies will be conquered. I love this planet, I love the freedoms my father gave 6 years of his life for in world war II and came home after more than a year at the front a shell of who he'd been. I detest the fanatics whether from the extreme left or the extreme right who are obliterating all of the goodness so many gave their lives for in so many wars. The extreme left who label all racist who differ from their opinions have so very much to answer for but their response if ever they gain wisdom will be: "I didn't know. I thought it was the right thing, I'm so sorry I never listened." If any Conservatives are still around that extreme left who called racism at every turn whether deserved or not, will undoubtedly forgive their idiocy. I do not forgive those who are not idiots. They are stealing everything they can because they do not love anyone nor anything. When we love we cannot behave in these terrible ways. When we are truly humanitarian we care about our own liberties and we know how easily they can be taken from us when those who value conquering and subjugating come to call.

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Hannah W • Aug 5, 2018 at 05:24

In the previous centuries when Europeans were the migrants, they called it 'colonialism'.

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Mark • Aug 1, 2018 at 21:15

Notice the socialist Spanish leader, betraying his country and his fellow Europeans. The left are intent on destroying their country & its heritage. It is the same world wide. Our Conservative government in Australia has managed to stem the tide of illegal immigrants, by enforcing our border policy, but if a Labor gov't gets in, the flood gates will open again. Islam is the greatest threat to world peace & stability than any other cause. It is not a religion, it is a dictatorial system of government, using so called spirituality as a cover for every vile misdeed known to human kind. It must be resisted.

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Jim

Mark • Jan 22, 2020 at 09:13

Australia's problem is not illegal immigration, but the ridiculously high level of legal immigration.

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Bill Johnston • Aug 1, 2018 at 21:03

What's missing here is an appreciation of the overall geopolitical effects of what I can only call "incremental invasion." It is offensive warfare without the shooting. It's a kind of guerrilla warfare. That is how civilization jihad goes. Not to fear, though, it is inevitable that shooting will come later when a threshhold of tolerance for the "occupying army" is crossed. Sad to say, and paradoxically, at that time it is the innocents who will be considered to be the enemy and they will end up being killed.

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Saba E. Demian, M.D. • Aug 1, 2018 at 19:53

The saying by Rudyard Kipling "the white man's burden" is a miss-characterization of the pull of 'Black' Africa on the British Empire during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. All the European Empires were equally takers than benefactors of Africa. This absurd behavior of Europe beating on its breast and crying mea culpa is a farce totally unbelievable and destructive to boot. Spain and indeed the entire Iberian Peninsula, has been occupied by the Muslim Arabs for seven centuries and only relieved in the fourteenth century reverting to Catholicism through the brutal offices of the Spanish Inquisition which reaped the lives of all, sparing none. Furthermore the Spaniards went forth to conquer more lands that any other empire before and since. The socialist government of Spain and other members of the European Union should mind their business and leave well enough alone. Saba E. Demian, M.D.

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CeCelia Squires • Aug 1, 2018 at 16:02

The Muslims are open about their intentions, while the European leaders are like the three monkey; see no evil, say no evil, and hear no evil!

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David Fanshaw • Aug 1, 2018 at 11:55

Europe will at some point in the not too distant future become Muslim dominated, all services will be totally swamped, standards will go right down, there will be a lack of money to support all these people - for few will be walking into well paid jobs - indeed, there will be massive unemployment for a largely uneducated section of the population, resentment from these groups that they don't have the money or lifestyles they thought they would be entitled to, crime will go up and up...Fake news?? An exaggeration? Stirring up the you know what? No, I'd say: the one thing the liberal minded politicians and their supporters simply won't admit is: THE TRUTH. How can it be any other way because they do not intend to stop this flow? But if these problems - as if by magic - will simply not happen those liberals are welcome to explain why it won't. Perhaps they'd also like to explain why people's nations should be turned into versions of Afrabia almost overnight and without them ever being consulted.

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REGINALD RAWLINSON • Aug 1, 2018 at 10:56

Who "pays" for the welfare of these thousands of illegal immigrants allowed into Spain by this new socialist government.? How does Sanchez propose to interview a solitary migrant when there so many here without permission. Does he know what he is doing? Is he aware "I doubt it" that all of them are headed for the "Welfare State"----The UK.

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gerald m serlin • Aug 1, 2018 at 10:49

It seems that every day the situation gets worse. If Europe does actually become part of a Muslim Empire, that might solidify the opposition needed to keep the same situation from forming in the Americas. Let's face it: You cannot have Sharia Law in countries steeped in a tradition of freedom. If that occurs we will be back in the Middle Ages again.

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Michael Waugh • Aug 1, 2018 at 10:23

I have enjoyed Spain for decades. I have friends who have invested in properties on the coast. However we all know how the Spanish government wants to destroy the tourist industry. I previously understood the flow of undesirables from Africa were rightly made most unwelcome. Now it seems Spain wants to destroy itself. I pity the young visitors from Europe and those living peacefully on the coastal areas. Will Europe never learn ? Seems Italy have learnt a little late. We in the UK must keep our Channel doors firmly shut.

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KcTaz

Michael Waugh • Aug 23, 2018 at 03:44

Michael, I love the UK and the Brit's so I mean this with no disrespect but whatever makes you think it's not already too late for the UK, too? There is an article in this publication about the persecution of Christians, particularly, in the ME and Syria. Despite a genocide in Syria against them, May, through the UN, took over 7K Muslim refugees and only a handful of Christians. This has been repeated over and over.

We watched what happened to Tommy Robinson. I do fear it may be too late for Britain.

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Edward • Aug 1, 2018 at 09:19

This will explode. It cannot stand. When Spain moves to the right it might be too late to deal with the situation peacefully. Is Soros money going into the push factor. Is he funding the source countries. Only catastrophe can come from this.

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Bill • Aug 1, 2018 at 08:31

Secularism has failed and is irredeemably weak and incapable of resisting Islam. Instead, the impulse of secular, PROGRESSIVISM and feminism is to embrace Islam. Besides the weakness of PROGRESSIVISM, it shares common values with Islam: AUTHORITARIANISM, cleptocracy, globalism and sexual license.

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Carl B • Aug 1, 2018 at 08:15

Excellent that the concept of 'immigration in the way of Allah' was mentioned.

This is a huge and much more dangerous motivator for flooding the non Islamic countries, then bleeding their welfare systems alone. The motivation there is not material, but political.

Anybody believing that a Muslim majority will in any way care about a non Muslim minority needs to get familiar with the doctrine of Islam, and how Islam conquered much of the Classical world.

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Peter Trott • Aug 1, 2018 at 08:11

All absolutely true. Spain is yet another example of the Left destroying the West by importing hordes of non-assimilating Moslems.
This is a reminder that we in Australia

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Rosandy • Aug 1, 2018 at 07:49

You would think the Spanish would have learned by now what invasion did to their country with the Moors. It took Spain hundreds of years to get rid of them. This time, the government has welcomed them in and it's only a matter of time before their country is lost forever.

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Jeff Page • Aug 1, 2018 at 06:46

The whole of Europe has a suicide mindset. The left has taken over the asylum and is smashing the walls down with sledgehammers. Sometimes they smash their own companions in the head, but most of the time they are making a bigger and bigger hole in the wall and allowing hordes of Muslims through. What was once a place of peace and serenity has become a nightmare, and yet their stupidity blinds them to the dangers they have created for themselves and for many millions of others. Christianity, is on dangerous ground, thanks to the lefty fools who have such twisted images of reality, and have no common sense whatsoever. Many of these lefties haven't a clue exactly what they are campaigning about or fighting for. The reality of their cause will soon become obvious to them, but by then it will be too late to fight back!

Many of the lefties have been victims of the state, whether it be by sanctions or stops to their benefits or perhaps some have been subjected to the loss of their homes or goods because they failed to pay their dues to society and were subsequently bankrupted and so hold a grudge to society as a whole. They are in many cases victims of the recession and see opposition as a way of hitting back at the system.

The Spanish should know better and the leadership really ought to read about the history of the country and Islam. The Muslims don't bring enormous wealth with them, they simply want to take what is yours!

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CeCelia Squires

Jeff Page • Aug 2, 2018 at 06:50

That is what Islam and Socialism have in common, taking what is yours, and total control.

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diane drewry

Jeff Page • Aug 3, 2018 at 04:34

Jeff, I always agree with your posts, they echo mine exactly, but I don't think many of today's lefties fit the category you mention,'..victims of the state'. I see the majority of lefties throughout the Western World as belonging to quite privileged families; university educated: look at Antifa -all young, revolutionaries paid by Soros; the same young lefties in our universities and together with the older lefties, rife throughout academia who have never grown up like the Corbyn's of this world and his British followers; the Social Democrats and the Green party - that thinks overloading a land with an ever increasing population doesn't contradict their environmental ethos; the bulk of American Democrats and the Hollywood elite. I think you will find very few people from the working classes represented here, only those who are so ignorant that they believe the stupid promises of free everything made to them.

I am extremely worried that the majority of people I know, are blinded to the crimes and unreality of the 'left' and still lap up the msm and its vicious twisting of the facts and outright lies. If it wasn't for the sanity of the journalists and comments on Gatestone, I would despair entirely.

I have come to the conclusion that the only possible explanation for intelligent people believing this leftist ideology that is clearly shown by History to be disastrous, is that they have strayed so far from reason and especially belief in God that they have lost their moral compasses along with their minds. These people are dangerous, they care not that they are destroying our countries and threatening our children's futures. I have never encountered such inexplicable mind sets - it's almost like they have breathed in some evil madness and we have escaped it.

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