Migration, asylum and Security: The Case of Ceuta and Melilla

The images of tons of people climbing up barbed wire fences over 3 meters high, using rudimentary stairs made by themselves, appeared in all the news during several days. Those images were used by the conservative media and by the main opposition party in Spain to create an atmosphere of extreme social tension. They tried to explain those events just from a domestic point of view, as if they were the consequence of the immigration policy implemented by the Government in 2005, and also of the improvement of relations between Spain and Marocco being exploited by the latter to get control of the Spanish enclaves in North Africa.

In this paper we will see that, apart of the general causes which are at the base of the migratory flows and have to be mentioned in any sociological analysis, this events were caused first, and paradoxically, by the success of the new system of surveillance of the coastline (SIVE) introduced in South Spain in 2002 and which diverted in part the traditional migratory flows.

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Migration, asylum and Security : The Case of Ceuta and Melilla