The arrival of thousands of migrants on Spanish shores should not become a political hobbyhorse. And society must go beyond social media arguments and make sure it understands what people arriving from Africa are going through - for which a Christian vision can be clarifying.

These are two of the ideas put forward by Conchi Rodríguez in an interview with Evangelical Focus. She is the director of Diaconía, a Spanish evangelical NGO that works directly with asylum seekers and unaccompanied minors in seven regions of the country.

 

Question. How do you assess the response of the authorities in Spain to the arrival of thousands of migrants in the Canary Islands and Ceuta this summer?

Answer. It is obvious that this arrivals have come as a surprise to all of us, given the increase compared to recent months.

By June this year (19,257), the number of arrivals had already tripled last year’s figure (7,913). And there is talk of a 167% increase in the number of migrants entering the Canary Islands in this six-month period compared to last year.

In absolute terms, these figures are not a high percentage in relation to the population we are in Spain, but a massive influx in a short period of time totally destabilises any forecasts that may have been made.

Since December 2023, Spain’s Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration has made several emergency declarations with financial allocations so that NGOs could increase our resources to take in these people. But it is true that there are not enough resources and this is creating serious problems for the migrants themselves, who cannot be received or cared for as they should. And it is a problem for Canary islands and Ceuta, which are overwhelmed.

Almost 100 million euros have been injected by the government, specifically in the Canary Islands, to meet the basic needs of these people. But it has all seemed to be too little, because the influx has exceeded the forecasts.

Q. How should the country respond to the requests for urgent aid being made by the governments in the Canary Islands and Ceuta?

A. Obviously there must be emergency measures to relieve the level of saturation that exists. Economic resources to be able to attend to the migrant population in a dignified manner while they are there. For unaccompanied minors, a plan to distribute these people throughout the rest of Autonomous Communities [Spain’s regions], and sufficient places for them and also for adults in the rest of Spain.

“There are not enough places and this creates serious problems for the migrants themselves and for the regions affected, which are overwhelmed”

But there is also a solution that may take longer, but which is essential, and that is the reform of the Law on Foreigners, which regulates their rights and freedoms in Spain and their integration. The problem is that a consensus has to be reached between the opposition parties and the government to achieve this. NGOs have been asking for this for a long time, so that migrants who are already in our country and those who are arriving can integrate socially and in the labour market sooner. The companies that hire them should be able to reduce the bureaucracy and obstacles they face in doing so. And of course, migrants should be considered as subjects of law, insofar as they are human beings, fleeing their countries due to war, hunger, disease, persecution for different reasons, ethnic, political, religious, etc.

This is an effort in which we will all have to be involved: governments (state, regional and local), third sector organisations, the business sector and our society as a whole.

 

Q. Governments across Europe have tightened migration policies. Meloni in Italy, Scholz in Germany, and many others are talking about deportations of all those who do not have permission to enter the EU. Polls show that the arrival of illegal immigrants is an issue that worries people in Europe. What adjustments need to be made to prevent migrants in Spain from becoming a central political battleground as is already the case in France or the UK?

A. I have made a table based on data that can be found in newspapers and public registers in different countries. There are variations because the range of these data is between 2022 and 2024, but it can give us an approximation of the impact of immigration in each country.

Among the countries you mention, Spain would be the third country in terms of population as a percentage of its total population. And immigrants represent only 13.62% of the population. In terms of unaccompanied foreign minors, it would be approximately fourth out of the five countries mentioned, as some of the data is from 2022 or 2023.

”There are 11,400 unaccompanied minors in Spain. I think that to speak of an ‘invasion’ is exaggerated to say the least”

I think that to speak of an “invasion”, of a “worrying phenomenon”, is exaggerated to say the least. Nowadays, it is quite difficult to prevent migrants from becoming a political battleground, as they are being used as a weapon against each other and are being used to attack governments. This is happening in Spain, in Europe, and in the US.

It will depend on the discourse of our political class and on the education and type of society we want to be. Societies in the northern hemisphere are very polarised, and there is a resurgence of xenophobic ideologies and hate speeches, and therefore political parties that are not in power in all these countries will probably use the imbalances that the arrival of migrants can produce to attack their governments.

Q. What about the efforts alongside the countries of origin?

A. I think it would be an ideal to pursue, however difficult or utopian it may seem to us, if living conditions in the countries of origin were better and therefore did not invite people, to use a euphemism, to flee.

This is very complex and requires political will to invest by developed countries in these poorer countries, dealing with corrupt governments in some of these countries that would make it difficult for such investments to have the right destination.

But there are also wars, which cause death, suffering, hunger, persecution. People have the right to live a life in dignified conditions, with the basic resources and opportunities to survive, for themselves and their children, but also in conditions of freedom and respect for human rights. This is the first thing that should be worked on; we owe it to them for the plundering to which we have subjected many of the countries of origin of migrants arriving in Spain and the rest of Europe for decades.

“Measures on the table could include the so-called ‘circular migration’, an agreement for an orderly entry with access to work”

Measures on the table could include the so-called ‘circular migration’, an agreement for an orderly entry with access to work, which is what they want and need. And fighting the mafias that prey on people fleeing from all this.

We should not buy into speeches that criminalise immigrants coming to Spain from Africa or other developing countries, as opposed to immigrants from more ‘like-minded’ countries, as happened with Ukraine, or from countries considered developed. If we do so, it is possible that we would then have to speak of aporophobia (disgust and hostility toward poor people).

I think it is vital to dismantle the hate speeches against immigration that are growing not only in Spain but also in Europe and beyond our continent.

Q. Some consider Christian organisations hosting migrants (including minors or asylum seekers) to be naïve, saying they focus only on compassion without taking a realistic view of the complex problems caused by the uncontrolled arrival of many people. How would you respond?

A. I think they think this about Christian organisations and NGOs because they don’t really know what our work consists of. We integrate people who arrive in our country socially and in the labour market. Of course, we help them to manage the migratory mourning for the losses they have suffered, from the most dramatic ones such as those of their families to those that may seem less important to us, such as leaving their country, their culture.

“We are the ones who know first-hand what has motivated them to leave their countries, their desires, the price they have had to pay to arrive”

When we take in asylum seekers, we have to manage everything related to their documentation and their asylum request before the Ministry of the Interior. In the course of that time, we give them a place to live, and take care of their basic needs, schooling for their children, and access to healthcare. We put a lot of emphasis on language learning, and knowledge of our culture, in order to be able to facilitate a proper integration. Another vital aspect is job skills, training and job search.

Therefore, I believe that our vision is very realistic, because we are the ones who know first-hand the needs of these people, what has motivated them to leave their countries, what their desires and objectives are, the price they have had to pay to arrive. Some have paid with their own lives. And that is why we denounce that they cannot arrive in these conditions, measures must be taken to humanise migration in the face of the increase in arrivals and the increase in hate speech against them.

We cannot deny that the arrival of so many migrants in such a short space of time causes a collapse in our system, which is clearly not prepared for it, and this is something that needs to be solved. However, I believe that we should cultivate critical and reflective thinking about what we are told about immigration, both by the media, opinion makers, and certain positions within the political class.

With figures in hand, we can see that the percentage of foreigners in Spain is less than 14%. Of these, according to Spanish Centre of Help to Refugees, only 118,842 are asylum seekers. And there are 11,400 unaccompanied minors. All this in a country with a population of 47.8 million.

Q. On an issue as complex as the immigration of people who risk their lives at sea without a clear future in Europe, how can the Christian vision combine justice, compassion and truth?

A. Christians are called by Jesus to compassion, justice, and truth. We need to be more reflective and critical of messages of criminalisation and hatred towards migrants (poor migrants, of course).

Jesus’ life was a constant example of compassion for the weak, the excluded, the sick, the poor. It is with them that Jesus related, to them he addressed himself. He healed them, accepted them into his inner circle, proclaimed the Kingdom of God to them. The religious and political establishment criticised him for this, but he said to them: “I have come to seek and to save that which was lost”, because “the healthy” have no need of a doctor. This is already in the Old Testament, where we are also told about caring for the orphan, the widow, the stranger.

“As Christians, we must welcome these people, who are our neighbours, because they live close to us”

It is clear that no one would flee their countries if they were not forced to do so, therefore, I believe that as Christians we must also get involved in denouncing situations of injustice towards those who suffer war, hunger, persecution for being or thinking differently. We must get involved in welcoming and treating these people, who are our neighbours, because they live close to us, as Jesus tells us, loving them as we love ourselves.

What would shock me is that there could be Christians who believe that justice, compassion and truth can be combined with an attitude of incomprehension or mistrust or rejection of people who risk their lives at sea in search of a better future, even if it is not clear to them that they are going to get it here in Europe.

No one would jeopardise their own life or much less the lives of their children on this journey if they were not in a truly desperate situation and had tried everything before and found no other way.

We do what we do in Diaconíoa out of this conviction, because the only possible way to make our following of Jesus real, to show the compassion he asks of us and the values we have learned from him, is to accept people who come from outside, to help them and to seek and fight in whatever way we can for their integration into our society.

At another time in history, it was the Spanish migrants who found themselves in this situation. Probably the people who welcomed them in the countries to which we migrated were not even Christians, so we are obliged to do the same, whichever way we look at it.

 

Diaconía’s work with migrants

Diaconía has 538 places in seven different regions of Spain, including some for trafficked migrant women. In addition to schooling and training to find work, work is done on language learning and understanding the local culture.

Projects such as ‘Contigo’ (Alongside You) are aimed especially at young people, to “create social support networks with the involvement of volunteers and mentors who are also young people who accompany them in their integration process”, Rodríguez explains.