Motril is running out of places to temporarily house the illegal-immigrant overspill; after using an exhibition hall, they have turned to the municipal stadium.
Salvamento Marítimo rescued another 132 immigrants this week, with women and children amongst them.
The Policía Nacional stand guard over the entrance until further notice.
(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)
Your constant repetition of the term “illegal immigrants” in your reporting is inaccurate and offensive. These people are migrants. Nobody is illegal. Are you racists?
Peter Farman
Dear Mr Farman, are you racist?
If you enter the country illegally, i.e., other than normal entrance points, then you have made an illegal entry. If you are only attempting to enter a country illegally and intercepted, your entry attempt was illegal just the same.
Having established that, which I take you will have nothing to grumble over, we move on to migrants and immigrants.
A migrant was originally a person who enters a country “legally” for a period of time, usually on a seasonal basis. That is to say, the person has no intentions of remaining in the country. If you enter a country or union, such as the EU, with the intention of setting up residence, then you are an immigrant.
I am an immigrant because I emigrated to Spain some 37 years ago from the UK. I am not Spanish, therefore I am an immigrant. I am also an EU resident therefore my status of immigrant is legal. I did not enter the country illegally. I do not come and go periodically as this is my legal place of permanent residence; therefore I am not a migrant.
So, and in conclusion, what makes an entry into a country “illegal” is how it is done and not for what reason it is done.
Finally, what is offensive, Mr Farman, is throwing the term “racist” around with such zealot righteousness, which is precisely why I started my response as I did. I could have just as easily started with “are you an idiot,” which, I trust, would be equally inaccurate.
Wishing you a splendid weekend
Martin Hugh Myall
I don’t agree at all. These people have not had their status determined. They may be be asylum seekers, refugees or immigrants, to be determined in due course. Or of course deported, as many are eventually. How about doing some journalism and finding out the story of just one such person or family? How about exploring the context of colonialism, neo-imperialism and exploitation that has led to this point?
Or is it just too easy to blame it all on “them”?
You don’t see the danger?
Maybe you think we should start caging the recently arrived children? As a deterrent?