Enrique López wrote that the massive arrival of unaccompanied foreign minors presents one of the most complex challenges facing Spanish migration policy. He stated that events in Ceuta in 2021 demonstrated that Spain's legal framework was designed to handle individual cases rather than respond simultaneously to thousands of arriving children.
López argued that simply distributing these children among autonomous communities, including Catalonia, does not provide a definitive solution to the crisis. Before permanently transferring minors across Spain, authorities must address where their families are located and what legal responsibilities belong to their home nation.
According to López, decisions must be guided by the best interest of the minor, but staying in Spain is not always in a child's best interest. He noted that returning children is advisable when their families are identified and sufficient guarantees exist for their proper care in their country of origin.
Morocco's legal obligations and bilateral agreements
López highlighted that the Spanish Foreigners Law explicitly provides for the repatriation of unaccompanied minors through family reunification or transfer to protection services in their home country. Spain and Morocco also maintain a specific bilateral agreement focused on preventing departures, protecting children, and assisting returns.
López stated that responsibility does not fall exclusively on Spain simply because a minor manages to cross the border. He wrote that Morocco, as the state of nationality, has direct obligations to identify its minor citizens, locate their families, and facilitate reunification.
If families cannot provide care, Moroccan public child protection services must supply guardianship, housing, schooling, and assistance, according to López. He argued that a modern, reliable state cannot accept thousands of its minors leaving irregularly and assume all responsibility vanishes once they enter Spain. He added that protecting vulnerable citizens serves as a key measure of a country's institutional quality.
Reforming the Foreigners Law for rapid processing
López called for a reform of Spain's Foreigners Law that respects established jurisprudence from the Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights. He stressed that national legislation cannot authorize collective or indiscriminate returns of minors, as domestic law cannot remove international and European legal protections.
López wrote that lawmakers must find a middle ground between an excessively slow ordinary procedure and illegal collective expulsions. He proposed creating an extraordinary procedure for massive entries of minors arriving from a safe state that maintains a specific cooperation and return agreement with Spain.
Under this proposed framework, Spanish and Moroccan authorities would jointly carry out identification, nationality checks, consular communications, family location, and evaluations of protection services in the country of origin. López emphasized that fast but effective individual evaluations would follow for each child.
This process would allow simultaneous returns of large groups of children without turning the operation into a collective expulsion, López wrote. He explained that the crucial difference lies in issuing individualized legal resolutions through an exceptionally rapid procedure rather than making indiscriminate decisions for a group.
Limits of regional distribution across Spain
López concluded that Morocco must accept the return of its citizens while guaranteeing proper protection. While distributing minors across autonomous communities may be temporarily necessary to relieve system saturation, he warned that it must not automatically become a permanent fix.
Before permanently housing children throughout Spain, authorities must immediately explore returning them to their families or Moroccan child protection services, López wrote. Protecting minors requires respecting their rights and ensuring institutional care, and López stated that Morocco cannot remain separate from that obligation.
