Every day TV news brings images of open boats crowded with Africans arriving in the Canary Islands. Sometimes a boat is crowded with people from further away, from Pakistan. Medical, judicial and customs personnel claim to be overwhelmed by the sudden increase in these "illegal" arrivals.
The Canaries (named not for the birds but for the fierce dogs or canes that used to roam there) were conquered by Spain in the 15th century and are now -- though geographically African -- a region of Spain, like Andalucía or Catalunya. If you can reach the Canaries, you have reached the European Union, and (if the Spanish authorities don't do something about it) you face no legal impediment to traveling anywhere in the EU. The Pakistanis who arrived the other day were probably heading to the United Kingdom, the French-speaking Africans from Mali, Senegal or Mauritania are probably thinking of France or Belgium. Thus, even though most of the French-speaking magrebíes (Morrocans and Algerians from the Maghreb) and Sub-Saharan Africans remain in Spain (where jobs are relatively plentiful), Spain's problem of immigration control is Europe's problem.
Or anyway, that's what the Spanish government is arguing in the European Parliament. Spain wants help in financing helicopters, patrol boats and vigilance systems (Spain has deployed several infrared detectors of outboard motors and human body warmth, but not enough to cope with the great numbers of clandestine immigrant craft). But so far countries remote from the African coast, and especially those with "conservative" (meaning, among other things, anti-immigrant) governments insist that controlling its borders is Spain's problem. Same with Malta and Italy, the other "front line" countries targeted by would-be immigrants from the south.
But then, how can it be just Spain's problem, if there are no longer any real borders among the European countries? Spain's coasts are now the southern frontier of all of Europe. It's the age-old philosphical debate, Whose responsibility is it to see to the welfare of all?
But there are also practical questions, not philosophical so much as sociological. First, What has spurred the great increase in illegal immigration in the past five or six years? Second, is this increase a problem for the richer countries that are receiving the immigrants? And if so, what kind of problem? Economic, political, cultural? And is it a problem (or perhaps a solution) for the poorer, sending countries? And thirdly, a sociological question which is also a big political question these days, regardless of whether it is really a problem or not, can it be stopped or even significantly reduced?
Here are some hypotheses.
1 - The main causes of increased illegal immigration may be a sudden relative impoverishment of the sending countries (relative to the beckoning prosperity of Spain and its northern neighbors). We'll need to look at the economic stats of the countries that sent the most migrants to Spain last year. OR it may be the increased efficiency of underground people-exporting business. OR the active recruitment by employers in Spain and elsewhere in Europe. Likely employers include construction industry, agriculture (big employer in southern Spain), and brothels, among others. All three of these things are going on, but which are more important probably varies by country.
These (rounded) figures are for numbers of applications for residence in Spain last year (thus, not counting the undocumented), but they may give an idea of the proportions:
AFRICA
Morocco 63,000
Algeria 8,000
Senegal 7,000
Nigeria 5,000
Mauritania 3,000
SOUTH AMERICA
Ecuador 21,000
Colombia 14,000
Brazil 3,000
Argentina 3,000
EUROPE
Rumania 9,000
Poland 4,000
Ukraine 4,000
Bulgaria 3,000
ASIA
China 10,000
Pakistan 6,000
Further thoughts to come.
(This note is two days later than promised. My apologies. Things happen.)
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