Spain’s migration policy is no shining example | Letter

Ruben Andersson and David Keen respond to an article by María Ramírez that said Spain was not panicking about migrants like Britain

María Ramírez underestimates the securitisation of migration at the Spanish borders (In Spain, we don’t share Britain’s migration panic – ‘stop the boats’ has few fans here, 18 December). It’s encouraging that political sentiment on migration is on the whole more positive in Spain than in the UK, but minimising the militarisation of Spain’s Mediterranean borders and the wider EU border operations fundamentally distorts the picture.

The result, as we detailed in a recent long read (‘Weapons of mass migration’: how states exploit the failure of migration policies, 14 December), is the deaths of thousands of people, the professionalisation of smuggling networks and an escalating political brinkmanship around the border.

Continue reading...