This summer, the Canary Islands in Spain have become the main recipient of migrants travelling irregularly to Europe.

In the last 15 days of August alone, 3,220 arrived on its shores from Africa risking their lives in small boats or dinghies organised by traffickers. The increase has more than doubled so far in 2024 (123% in the first 8 months of 2023).

Noemi Mena, a Spanish university professor in the Netherlands, an expert on migration and the world of work, told Evangelical Focus that the crisis in Spain is the result of a complex game of balances: when routes through the Mediterranean are forcibly closed, others open up in the Atlantic.

Mena holds a PhD in Political Communication and Migration and spends much of her time researching immigration. Her main complaint is the “lack of solidarity between regions”, but also that governments “make policy on the basis of news”. As a Christian, she believes in the need to respond with compassion to people who arrive fleeing very complex personal situations, but at the same time she calls for those arriving in Europe to be made aware of the harsh reality they will encounter here.

In this interview, she also speaks on the role of the media, political partisanship and the concept of ‘circular migration’. 

Question. In the Canary Islands they are exhausted, and the authorities have launched a cry for help. What can be done in the face of the arrival of so many migrants to the same place without a clear future?

Answer. I see a clear lack of solidarity between the interior and the border regions. This is happening in Spain, but also at the European level, with the new immigration pact, where there was talk of ‘flexible solidarity’.

The pressure on the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla far exceeds that of the rest of Spain. In some places there are no more resources left. In Fuerteventura, for example, they set up a camp with 900 immigrants who had just arrived next to a small village of 500 inhabitants. Obviously, nobody can stand this pressure, it is impossible to maintain, both at the level of citizens and at the level of resources.

“Nobody talks about how the number of irregular migrants arriving in Europe has decreased”

There is also a political exploitation of this issue. It is true that over 25,000 people have arrived in the Canary Islands this year, and approximately 35,000 in Spain as a whole. These are very significant figures, especially if we compare them with recent years.

However, in Europe, if we look at the data from Frontex (the agency that manages the European Unions’s external borders and controls irregular immigration), there have been reductions of 40% in irregular immigration.

Does this appear on the front page of any newspaper or on the news? Does any political party comment on it? I haven’t heard it mentioned by Meloni, Wilders, Le Pen or Vox in Spain... Nobody talks about how the number of irregular immigrants arriving in Europe has decreased.

Q. What has changed recently?

A. When one door closes, another opens. The door to the Mediterranean has been closed, through Frontex and all the European Union's agreements with Tunisia and Turkey, and the more dangerous Canary Islands route has been opened.

Policies have been tightened, and Italy has managed to reduce irregular immigration by a 60%. Something similar is happening in Greece and on the Balkan Route.

This is just an indication that the figures are very relative, and that sensationalism and the media and all the parties of the right, extreme right, and all the ideologies that use immigration as a scapegoat.

Frontex’s own maps show a lot of arrows towards us, it looks like “Africa is going to invade Europe”. There are no arrows showing the internal displacement in the neighbouring continent, which is 80% of the movements: migrants going to Uganda, South Africa or Kenya, for example.

Q. Surveys show that the arrival of irregular immigrants is an issue of great concern to Europeans at the moment.

A. In Spain, migration policy is made at the drop of news. Immigration only appears as an issue of concern to Spaniards, according to the official surveys, in the months of September and October, but not after that.

It is because of the images of the small boats and cayucos that have been arriving in our border regions for years. The problem is that Spain has no medium- or long-term plan or planning, it simply responds to crises at the specific moment.

Q. Among Christians, there are all kinds of reactions to irregular immigration. Some emphasise compassion for the needy, others the impact it may have on the future, or the economic reality of Europe. How do you see it?

A. As Christians, we are called to help people in need. In any emergency or crisis situation, whether it is the arrival of migrants in the Canary Islands, or the crisis in Europe with the arrival of refugees, Afghans, or Ukrainians.

“Circular migration would be better for everyone: they could come without risking their lives, and it would be known in which sectors workers are needed”

In the long term, we need to see whether that town or that city or that region can offer work or other solutions to people who arrive irregularly, migrants who are looking for a job and a future.

I think it is very admirable that many churches and Christian organisations have collaborated with these situations, and this appears very little in the media. Both in Europe and in places like the Canary Islands, the government asks Christian organisations for help because there are not enough resources. And this does not have the visibility it should have: the call for compassion and response in times of need.

I would like to point out that many of the people who arrive illegally do so because there is no other route, there is no other way. If there were, they would take it.

Q. based on your experience in this field, what possible solutions can you think of?

A. I think it is important that Spain and Europe create a legal route for ‘circular migration’, for all jobs. For example, in the countryside we have many temporary jobs that could be covered. That money, those remittances, could go back and help rebuild the countries of origin. This would give a clear and fair view of the reality, and show that these countries also need their people.

I have spoken to ‘temporeras’ working in the strawberry harvest in Huelva. They are from the Maghreb, from North Africa, they work for two or three months and go back home. If these models of ‘circular migration’ were better explored, I think many people would use them.

A legal pathway would be better for everyone: migrants could come without risking their lives, and there would be a series of guarantees for the host states, which need labour. It would be known in which sectors workers are needed and there would be a realistic plan, avoiding the arrival of people without a plan and without a future.

About Noemi Mena

Noemi Mena is Professor in International Business and Communication (IBC) at the Dutch Radboud University and researcher at the immigration organisation RUNOMI. She holds a PhD in Political Communication and Migration from the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos (Madrid), and is an expert in intercultural communication and investigative journalism.

Noemi is co-founder of Re-starter, a foundation that promotes the integration of refugees in the Netherlands and other European countries. This academic year, she is the coordinator of a training project for refugee women at Radboud University.