Rubén Pulido served in the Air Force for 11 years, a period in which he also completed several military training courses and a Master in International Relations at the UCAM, and was awarded the Medal of Merit and Sacrifice. During his career outside the military, he has advised various organizations on immigration matters. He has been director of communication of the VOX Parliamentary Group in Andalusia and currently works as an analyst and researcher, collaborating with various media and public entities.
Pedro Sanchez’s government claims that illegal immigration has decreased. Is it true?
So far this year the barrier of 20,000 has been surpassed, but it is true that this represents a decrease compared to last year’s data. However, this is not a cause for relief because we are talking about figures much higher than years ago and that is not the first time it has happened; between 2022 and 2023 there was a decrease, but the following year illegal immigration increased considerably. With 20,000 arrivals and with months to go, the year may end alarmingly. A very important factor to consider is that weather conditions have been adverse en route to the Atlantic.
This explains the decline in arrivals in the Canary Islands, but what is the situation in the Balearic Islands?
In the Balearic Islands, the number of arrivals has doubled. If this route consolidates and is added to the possible increase next year of the Canary Islands route, we may find ourselves in a situation of historical record, which is what I predict. We must analyze the causes of the decline and the reason is mainly due to bad weather conditions, although the government boasts that the cause is the agreements with countries such as Senegal, Mauritania or Gambia. No, those agreements are not working as they should because the area is a chaos that is going to explode at any moment. For me, the situation is very worrying.
Morocco announced in July the largest amnesty in recent years: 22,000 prisoners. Will many of these prisoners arrive in Spain through illegal immigration? What is the reason for this amnesty?
There are many factors. Morocco plays with illegal immigration, whether with amnestied persons, young people or unaccompanied minors, and uses it as a preferential weapon of diplomatic pressure and is the most used within the arsenal of measures of an aggressive diplomacy to blackmail and pressure Spain. The life of an amnestied or pardoned person in Morocco is complex because they are subjected to surveillance and, depending on the crime, to a follow-up, that is to say, it is an uncomfortable life and that drives them to leave the country. An illegal immigrant is more likely to have this profile, more conflictive, than any other. I have checked this issue and I have a triple confirmation from the National Police, Guardia Civil and Frontex.
Why is Morocco making these amnesties? First of all, because of the overcrowding in its prisons, I think the latest data from the penitentiary institutions speak of 100,000 prisoners. Morocco does not build new prisons and that is why it resorts to amnesties. On the other hand, these measures clean up the image of the regime and make the population see that its monarch is affable, compassionate and willing to integrate into society those sentenced to prison. This is intended to reduce the tension among a part of the Moroccan population that does not look favorably on the monarchy’s ever-increasing resources while many are unable to eat three meals a day. Finally, Morocco also has the World Cup and has to present itself as safe and “western”, and removing all these criminals helps to meet these objectives.
Santiago Abascal, president of VOX, caused a strong controversy when he stated that the ship of the NGO Open Arms should be sunk for collaborating in human trafficking. Do NGOs collaborate with mafias?
The problem is that there is an impunity that I do not understand. I have been observing NGOs operating in the central Mediterranean for a decade, and they all commit a multitude of irregularities. I have been in contact with Frontex agents in southern Italy and have collaborated with them on reports that show that there is absolute coordination between Libyan or Tunisian traffickers and these humanitarian organizations. In the face of so much clear and manifest evidence, I do not know why nobody does anything in Europe so that these organizations come to an end and stop creating a pull factor.
NGOs should do search and rescue patrols, but many times they go straight to a specific point, pick up a boat, and go to a port in southern Italy, not to a Tunisian one. I can understand why they don’t go to a Libyan port, but why don’t they go to Tunisian ports like Sfax, where there are five hospitals and there is no danger for the migrants. The NGO should go to the nearest safe port because that is what maritime law says and because people who are in supposed danger should not be subjected to an unnecessary crossing. What these humanitarian organizations are doing makes no sense.
A few days ago you participated in a television debate with a representative of Open Arms, who justified the presence of the NGO in the Mediterranean because of the deaths at sea.
Yes, they invited Oscar Camps, the director of Open Arms, but he declined the invitation and sent his spokesman in Italy. Of course people die at sea, but if you study the statistics, for example, of the UN Missing Migrants Program, you realize that when there is less activity of humanitarian organizations in the area, fewer deaths have been caused. In fact, when Matteo Salvini activates the security decree the lowest number of deaths in the last decade is recorded. The more NGO vessels in the Mediterranean, the more likely there are to be deaths at sea. The traffickers want to make money and, as the NGOs get closer and closer to the coast, they use more precarious vessels that increase the likelihood of death.
This is not just me saying this, it already appears in the 2017 report of the Global Initiative against Organized Crime, between pages 40-50: As a result of NGOs operating closer and closer to shore traffickers resort to increasingly precarious vessels. Elizabeth Collett of the Migration Policy Institute also stated the same.
What do you think of Giorgia Meloni’s government’s measures to deal with illegal immigration?
It is being effective at the moment, but subrogating the control of illegal immigration to third countries makes you dependent on them. That is to say, when you stop paying, the migratory faucet is reopened and new waves arrive in Italy until your government pays again. In fact, just after Giorgia Meloni came to power, many boats arrived in Lampedusa, which nobody expected, and this was a maneuver of the Tunisian president, Kaïs Saied, to accelerate an agreement between Italy and Tunisia. The agreements were signed and illegal immigration was reduced the following year by 60%, but because a check was put on the table. Thus, we are in danger of entering into a spiral of migratory blackmail. Right now there is a migratory plug in Tunisia and Libya, so the migratory flows are shifting towards Spain and this may mean that, in the future, the Italian route will fall into disuse, even if the control of Tunisia and Libya is relaxed.
The question is to be active and to take more measures in your territory. Italy has put in place restrictions to acquire residency and to combat fraudulent registration, but they are still not enough. And then there is the big unfinished business of NGOs. Meloni is constantly sanctioning them, but allows them to enter Italian ports, and sanctions are not a problem when it comes to NGOs with significant financial backing. Sovereignty is the only way to deal effectively with illegal immigration.
