The EU already hosts a number of ‘temporary stay centers for migrants arriving in the bloc’s overseas territories in Africa.
The two Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla play host to the EU’s only land borders on the continent of Africa.
More than 6,000 migrants have travelled to the Spanish cities on Morocco’s northern coast this year, according to the United Nation’s refugee agency UNHCR.
Archbishop Martinez said migrants arriving at the EU’s gates in Africa are forced into hiding in nearby forests and wastelands on the outskirts of the security fences surrounding the two enclaves…
The Archbishop claims that the crowds of Arabs and Africans who try to clamber over the security fences around the two Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla are “forced into hiding…on the outskirts of the security fences…” These Arabs and Africans are engaged in besieging those outposts of Spain, for if they manage to get into Ceuta or Melilla, they are then considered legally to be in Spain, which means they have also made it into Europe, and cannot then be turned back. They are not in “hiding,” because they are being pursued by the police, much less by the equivalent of S.S. men. Having failed in an attempt to scale the border fences, they simply go somewhere nearby, and wait, eager to try to breach the fence again. The worst thing that can happen to them is not some kind of concentration camp horror, but that they may be returned to their home countries, from which, of course, they may try yet again to make it into Europe.
The Archbishop seems to believe that Europe should fling wide open its doors to all those who want to enter. In this respect he is echoing Pope Francis, who believes that Europe, that the West, has a duty to let in all who want to come, no matter what their motives or mental baggage, and that those who oppose this policy, the so-called “populists” who would like to keep control over their own borders, are akin, insists the Pope, to Hitler. For both Pope Francis and Archbishop Agrelo, it is somehow illegitimate for Europeans to want to choose with whom to share their home, their country. Is that desire really so hard for the Archbishop and the Pope to fathom? They apparently believe that Europeans owe these Arabs and Africans a duty, not just to admit them, but to assure them of support. These economic migrants are not fleeing persecution or death, though they claim asylum. They want only to improve their standard of living, to be taken in by a European country, preferably one of those which offers the most generous benefits. Billions of people have lower living standards than Europeans. Would the Archbishop and the Pope argue that whoever wants to get into Europe should be admitted? I’m afraid so.
The hysterical language used by the Archbishop, about Europeans putting these would-be migrants into “concentration camps” and then “treating as slaves” those admitted to Europe, is matched only by the Pope’s extraordinary language comparing those who want to decide for themselves whom to admit into their midst, rather than be dictated to by E.U bureaucrats in Brussels, to Adolf Hitler.
It’s a failure of mind and heart, by both Archbishop Agrelo and by Pope Francis. A country should be thought of as akin to your family’s home. You want to be able to choose for yourself who enters your home and lives with you. That’s all Europe’s “populists” want. They want to be able to make that decision for themselves, based quite reasonably on what they have learned from their experience with migrants, and above all with Muslim migrants, so far. They want to protect their countries from this new kind of invasion. They do not wish to harm anyone. Yet the Pope likens them to Hitler, and Archbishop Agrelo calls the centers where migrants stay while being processed “concentration camps.”
This refusal by Archbishop Agrelo to ignore the observable effect so far of tens of millions of Muslims already let into Europe, and his choosing instead to cruelly demonize Europeans who want only to be able to vet those attempting to enter their countries, their homes, is deplorable, though given the example of the Pope, not surprising. Pope Francis has gone from bad to worse — for what could be worse than comparing “populists” (that is, those Europeans who have read enough, studied enough, and observed enough, to become wary of more Muslim migrants) to Adolf Hitler? Pope Francis has been Pope for five years; he is 81; for many, his retirement can’t come fast enough. As for Archbishop Agrelo, perhaps he should concentrate more on the well-being of his own Believers in the archdiocese of Tangiers (Dioecesis Tingitanus), rather than warning about non-existent “concentration camps” being set up for migrants. As Christians in a Muslim sea, in partibus infidelium, his tiny flock of brave Christians — 2,500 of them — in Tangiers will no doubt continue to need his protection for as long as they are allowed to subsist.