The 92 immigrants that reached the coast off Motril on Saturday the 17th have had the good luck of finding the holding centres full – they are to go free.

The normal procedure is for all illegal immigrants upon arrival to be put in a temporary holding centre for 72 hours and then moved to a Centro de Internamiento para Extranjeros (CIE), but all of the CIE’s are brimming and unable to accept anymore newcomers.

So, the police handed them over to NGO’s, who took charge of them and distributed them around special homes across Andalucia, such as in Córdoba, Huelva or Jerez de la Frontera, where they will receive humanitarian aid.

They’ll also receive instructions on how to plan their lives in the host country, and indeed in the rest of Europe, as Spain is only a gateway for many to richer countries in Europe.

This situation is far from new, as last year and again in January this year the Spanish Red Cross had to find ‘homeless’ new arrivals somewhere to temporarily live before moving on. Between October 2016 and January 2017 a total of 300 immigrants were simply turned out to do as they please because there was no room.

These ‘bursting-at-the-seams’ CIE’s exist as somewhere to hold immigrants until it is decided to send them back or accept them, if they are refugees fleeing from persecution, for example.

The last batch of 92 immigrants will remain in special homes provided by the said NGO’s (Accem and Cepaim, for example) for three months, during which time they get Spanish classes, as well as help to find friends and relatives already living in Europe.

(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia – Photo: Video Still/Ideal)