Government expelled 1,592 migrants and returned 392 in the first half of 2023which means 15.6% of the total entries irregularly in this period of time (12,704). This Monday, December 18, International Migrants Day is celebrated.
This has been revealed in a parliamentary response to the deputies of the Popular Parliamentary Group, Isabel María Borrego Cortés and Ana Belén Vázquez Blanco, in which they ask the Executive what is the number of migrants returned to their countries of origin or habitual countries of return, broken down by country and annual period, from 2018 to the present.
In the text, to which Europa Press has had accessthe Government has reported that in 2021 there were 2,025 expulsions and 1,569 returns of migrants, 8.5% of the 41,945 entries that took place irregularly in Spain from January 1 to December 31. Meanwhile, in In 2022, 2,627 and 1,015 were registered, which represents 11.6% of the 31,219 tickets.
Regarding the nationalities of the immigrants, the Government has highlighted that it is not possible to provide them “because it could affect the procedures for this type of files.”
Precisely, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, In his appearance this Wednesday in Congress, he stressed, in response to the parliamentary spokespersons, that Spain is one of the countries within the European Union “that has had the most returns”. At this point, he also expressed to the groups the complications that occur when carrying out this action.
“What do you think the countries, given the economic and personal circumstances they live in, are going to accept the return?” he said, adding that in countries like Senegal and Gambia “remittances from irregular migration” represent “between 10 and 15% of their GDP“(Gross Domestic Product).
Likewise, the head of the Interior portfolio highlighted the “coordinated cooperation” with these countries. “Do you think that if there is no coordinated cooperation, collaboration, plans, you are going to accept?”he stated.
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So far in 2023 A total of 50,551 migrants have arrived in Spain irregularly. This is the second year with the most entries after 2018 (more than 57,000) and the first to the Canary Islands, with 35,410, ahead of 2006, when the so-called ‘cayuco crisis’ occurred and 31,678 people arrived in the archipelago, according to the balance sheet data of the Ministry of the Interior as of November 30, 2023.
Therefore, this is 8,606 more migrants than in 2021 and 19,332 more than in 2022, with a few days left to close the year.