Spain Sees Record Number of Undocumented Migrants Arrive by Sea

(Bloomberg) -- Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is the most vocal advocate of migration among leaders in the European Union but data released in Madrid on Thursday threaten to ratchet up the pressure he faces, both in the bloc and at home, from advocates of tighter border controls. 

A total of 42,899 people — most of them fleeing rising instability in Sub-Saharan Africa — arrived in Spain by sea this year as of Oct. 15, the highest number for the period on record, according to the interior ministry, and more than the annual total for all recorded years except 2018 and 2023. 

The data was released just as EU leaders were gathering in Brussels to discuss ways of tightening rules to curb arrivals to Europe.

Michel Barnier, France’s new premier, is pushing for quick deportations. Prime Minister Donald Tusk has said Poland will suspend asylum rights for anyone entering the country via Belarus. And Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has already opened a detention center in Albania.

Instead Sanchez is calling for some 500,000 people already in Spain to be regularized and integrated into society while advocating “circular migration” policies to create legal channels for the economic migrants he says Spain’s aging population desperately needs. Similar agreements have existed with Latin American countries for several years.

The Spanish leader and his Socialist-led government face push back from the anti-immigrant, far-right Vox, the third-largest party in parliament. From the regional government of the Canary Islands, which says it doesn’t have capacity to handle the 32,878 people who arrived on its shores in 2024. And a growing number of voters. 

About 57% of Spaniards say there are “too many immigrants” in the country, according to a survey by pollster 40dB published Oct. 7 by the left-leaning newspaper El Pais. While 73% of Vox voters think immigration is a problem, about a third of Socialist voters also think like that, according to the poll. Roughly 18.5% of Spain’s population was born abroad. 

Although people arrive in Spain through several points, the main route is currently the so-called Atlantic Route. Given the distance across open ocean from the points of departure in West Africa to the Canary Islands, campaign groups consider this the most dangerous migration journey in the world. Most of those who make it safely to the archipelago head to mainland Spain, but some then travel on to other parts of Europe. 

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