Now, with preparations to return to the “new normallity” and, as international borders are reopened, expulsion orders and internment appear to be returning.

In view of this situation, the Jesuit Migrant Service asks the Government and the Judiciary to

• Close these IDC centres definitively: there are alternatives
• That people in vulnerable situations are never locked up

Your support, your signature, is very important.

• There people who should never enter an IDC
  – Young people whose majority cannot be certified; the law prohibits the internment of minors
  – Persons in need of international protection who should be able to apply for asylum at the time of their identification
  – People with signs of physical or mental health problems
  – Persons with indications of having been trafficked
• Nor should foreign people, with domicile and support networks in Spain, enter. And, of course, people should never be admitted if they are processing their regularization at the foreigner’s offices.
• The CIE do not have the capacity to implement sufficient measures of distancing and hygienic prevention. Conditioning them would mean a great economic effort (they already had complaints about structural deficiencies) and until a vaccine is found for COVID19 it is very foreseeable that situations of confinement of the population will repeat themselves.
• Confinement must always be the last option. It is a precautionary measure bordering on unconstitutionality and its practical application is arbitrary and unjust; it does not take into account particular situations of vulnerability. The law already provides for alternatives.

Moreover, with the economic crisis resulting from the pandemic, it is very difficult to have a “call effect”. During the last crisis, Spain was more of an emigration and transit country than an immigration country.

The Jesuit Migrant Service in June 2019, together with the presentation of its CIE2018 Report, promoted the online initiative that is the basis of this petition.