As Africans Surge to Europe’s Door, Spain Locks Down

Europe’s barricades and dangerous seas, beatings and insults, military police and rubber bullets, are not slowing the stream of immigrants attempting to flee poverty in Africa or war in Syria. “Ten years ago Spain spent more than 30 million euros building up the barriers around Melilla and Ceuta, its two enclaves surrounded by Morocco on the northern coast of Africa,” reports Suzanne Daley for the New York Times. “And for a while the investment seemed to work. But in the past year, large groups of sub-Saharan immigrants have been charging the rows of seven-yard-high chain-link fences here with increasing frequency.” The EU and human rights activists criticize harsh tactics of the Spanish military police. Spain, Italy and other countries near Africa counter they cannot manage the immigration influx on their own. Migrants who make it to Europe typically stay because of the lack of repatriation treaties with source nations in Africa, and Spain is contemplating changes in immigration to allow immediate deportation. – YaleGlobal