When the Spanish government describes the remaining migrants in Ceuta as “only” 7,000 unaccompanied minors, it omits crucial factors: family reunification and the pull factor. What is presented as a limited humanitarian effort could in practice become a new wave of migration throughout Schengen.
“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
When I watch the videos from Ceuta, where bus after bus is being filled with minors who are to be shipped onward to the mainland – and thereby gain full access to the entire Schengen area – I think of the classic approach when children want something: Do you want a rabbit, but your parents say no? Then nag your parents, for a long time and intensely, about wanting a puppy. When you then change your mind and settle for a rabbit, they will feel that they have won – even though the only thing that has happened is that you got the rabbit you wanted from the beginning…
Around 60,000 illegal migrants (some reports put the number as high as 80,000) stormed Ceuta within a single day. When Spain’s government now triumphantly declares that “everyone” – except for 7,000 minors – has left, we can conclude the following: 1) The Spanish government is lying. 2) Europe is, in all likelihood, facing a new refugee crisis.
Thousands of men remain in Ceuta. They now spend their days looting, vandalising and attacking the local population. All while waiting to get a place on the boats that are now shuttling back and forth between Ceuta and the mainland, while the people smugglers are making a fortune.
Compared with (at least) 50,000 adult, aggressive men, 7,000 children certainly appear to be a relief. But judging by the busloads, this time too it is a matter of both children and “children”, that is, almost exclusively men of varying ages, but where very few appear to be under 18.
Someone might argue that it does not matter very much, since it is only a matter of 7,000 people who will be distributed across a large area.
But is that really so?
As (presumed) minors, they will be granted asylum in an EU country and subsequently have the right to family reunification – for some strange reason, these reunifications have to take place in Europe. A Moroccan woman gives birth to an average of three children. If the 7,000 who are now to be granted asylum have two parents, two siblings and four grandparents, we are not talking about 7,000 people but about 63,000.
And with the benefit of hindsight from Sweden after the migration crisis of 2015–16: How many of these “children” will later turn out to have both a wife and their own children in their home country – wives and children who, of course, will also need a plane ticket to the welfare countries of the north?
The likelihood that they will settle for a future as orange pickers in poor Spain is small, because the entire Schengen area is open to anyone who is now granted asylum in Spain. If you are resourceful enough to swim to Ceuta, you are probably capable of taking a train or bus north – to France (read: Britain), Germany, Norway or Sweden.
Nick Shirley has published a report from Ceuta, where he interviews boys and men who say they left Morocco because they had no money, and who now intend to make their way into Europe. “To Germany, Brussels, Belgium, Denmark, Holland.”
And is there anyone who believes that this is enough now? One week ago, it was proven that Europe’s border is relative. There are literally loopholes through the border and into the shining future of abundance that the majority of the populations of Africa and the Middle East dream of.
At the very moment when Spain’s Supreme Court ruled that people who enter by land can be rejected immediately, while everyone who arrives by sea must be guaranteed an individual assessment, the outcome was a foregone conclusion:
There are millions upon millions of individuals who are willing to risk their lives to reach the Eldorado that Europe is, in their eyes: countries where you get everything for free, where you never have to make an effort, and where you can secure both your own and your family’s future – simply by getting there.
A frighteningly large number are also willing to risk their children’s lives.
Spain’s socialist government has, in its pursuit of being good, created a motorway into the EU. A motorway that will leave many fortune seekers injured and dead on their way into Europe.
But Europeans will also be injured and killed by the chaos that has so far followed in the footsteps of boundless goodness. That this claim is not taken out of thin air is demonstrated by Shirley’s report – it ends with him having to flee after being attacked with bottles and subjected to stone-throwing.
Right now, the refugee crisis of 2015 and 2016 is playing out again, before our eyes. And it has only just begun.
“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”
Below you can watch Nick Shirley’s report from Ceuta: