Cádiz becomes new gateway for irregular immigration from Ceuta

The Cádiz coast, a new front line of irregular immigration

The coast of Cádiz has moved to the front line of Spain's migration map. Trinc last week's crisis in the autonomous city of Ceuta, migrant boats are once again landing in towns such as Barbate and Algeciras. Each crossing costs up to 7,000 euros, and social unrest is mounting.

A journey that costs 7,000 euros

The figure appears in alerts circulating in recent hours: paying 7,000 euros to cross the Strait in a makeshift boat. That money makes the route a lucrative business for traffickers, who operate with total impunity between Ceuta and the Cádiz coast. Meanwhile, local councils are shouldering the cost of reception with limited resources.

Employers and Schengen: two opposing readings

The public reactions leave two readings. One points out that the local business association celebrates the arrival of cheap labour without covering the cost of the journey or the migrants' upkeep. The other demands a tough response: that Spain consider its membership of the Schengen area in order to control its borders. Nobody mentions an intermediate solution, and unrest keeps spreading.

Amid all this, irony is not lacking: with so many arrivals, the Cádiz coast could provide plenty of material for the short film festival that kicks off at the end of September. Reality, however, is not a movie: the flow continues and no European body seems willing to stop it. The question is how long it will take the pressure on Cádiz to overflow onto the national political agenda.