Last Sunday, a riot took place in one of the reception rooms for immigrants at Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport. According to the Spanish Police Confederation (CEP), A group of Mauritanian and Maghrebian citizensof the nearly eighty inmates in these facilities, “tried to escape after learning that they had rejected some of their asylum requests“The situation reached such a point that the agents stationed at the border post at this airport were forced, once again, to request reinforcements.
Already in June, another police union, JUPOL, warned of the collapse of the reception centres after the massive arrival of citizens of Mauritaniaspecifically “women travelling with children” via the Royal Air Maroc company. The agents then indicated that these were people who do stopover in Madrid, with final destination to South American countriesand who request asylum in our country as soon as they land.
A more common problem than you might think, which is why they insisted on the need to activate “transit visas”to avoid the increase in the number of people on flights with a stopover in Spain, who take advantage of the stopover in Spanish territory to apply for asylum.” That is, they were demanding the End of the so-called “patera flights”since most of them get rid of their passport during the flight or upon arrival in Madrid and then pretend to be an African national who is in a conflict situation in order to request asylum.
However, despite the fact that Pedro Sánchez’s Executive agreed to the requirement of a transit visa for Mauritanian citizens, the patch seems to have been of little use, as demonstrated by what happened last Sunday in Barajas. And the fact is that The rejection of several asylum requests was the trigger for a riot with an attempted escape This put the police officers stationed at the border post in a difficult position, forcing them to call for reinforcements. But what really happens when your request for asylum in Spain is denied?
The process to apply for international protection at the airport is simple, but there are certain requirements to be met in order for it to be accepted. According to UNHCR, as soon as you land you must go to a national police officer or civil guard and inform them that you want to apply for asylum. If the person requesting protection does not speak Spanish, an interpreter is provided. In the case at hand, at an airport, it is mandatory that they have the assistance of a lawyer.
Expulsion in 15 days
The procedures will then begin: a personal interview, in which you will have to explain the reason why you cannot return to your country of originas well as the provision of documentation proving the facts described. This information will remain confidential.
Once the interview is over, the citizen requesting asylum must remain at the airport until it is decided whether your asylum application will be studied by the Spanish government or not. At this point, UNHCR explains that if they decide to study your case, they will authorize your entry and stay in Spain to continue with your asylum application. If it is rejected, a re-examination of the asylum application may be required.If the petition is denied a second time (within 48 hours), the next step is to consult an attorney to see if an appeal is possible.
In any case, if the Spanish State does not recognize that there is a need for protection, The applicant must leave our country within 15 daysunless you have another type of residence permit.
Record number of asylum applications
According to provisional data accumulated between January 1 and July 31, 2024 made public by the Ministry of the Interior, The number of applications for international protection in our country exceeds 100,137. If we take into account that 2023 closed with a total of 163,220 applications for international protection, a new historical maximum of applications in Spain could be reached by the end of this year.
Specifically, 57.17 percent of the requests correspond to men and 42.83% women. It mostly affects people between 18 and 34 years old (50.87%) and 35 to 64 years old (29.60%). The percentage of minors requesting international protection barely reaches 14.48%.
The vast majority of asylum applications have been made throughout the national territory (95,939), and the rest in border posts (3,393), CIE (515) and at the embassy (290)According to data from the Interior Ministry, according to the country of origin of people seeking refuge in Spain, people from Venezuela (37,851), Colombia (25,811) and Peru (6,665) remain in the top positions, but there is a significant increase in applications from countries in sub-Saharan Africa, mainly from Mali (6,323) and Senegal (4,936).
Regarding the International Protection resolutions, in these seven months, our country has favorably resolved 4,341 cases: 2,790 have received refugee status and 1,551, subsidiary protection. In contrast, 15,972 resolutions have been unfavourable. On the other hand, 13,866 people have obtained authorisation to reside and work in Spain for humanitarian reasons. However, it should be noted that these data do not include people who received “temporary protection”, such as refugees from the war in Ukraine. Specifically, in the first six months of 2024, 18,127 people benefited from this protection.
In short, the data provided by the Ministry of the Interior reveal an unstoppable increase in asylum applications, being the third country receiving international protection in the European Union. It is also observed that the percentage of positive resolutions falls in the face of the ever-increasing number of rejections.