Immigration in the Canary Islands
Dirk Godenau, Rabat, 4th January 2008
During 2006 and 2007, the Canary Islands have become notorious
in the Spanish and international media because of the dramatic
images about extenuated people arriving at beaches in the middle of
European tourists. Migrants coming over from Africa in fragile boats,
coping with the hardness of another step in their migration route to
Europe. In 2006 more than 30 thousand of these boat people arrived
in the Canary Islands, but in 2007 numbers dropped to 12 thousand.
Anyway, this type of immigration is a small part of total arrivals in the
Canary Islands and leaves only traces of relatively minor importance
in the statistics on resident foreigners living in this region. In order to
get a wider picture of general migration patterns in the Islands, in the
following I will highlight the main points which characterize
immigration in the Canary Islands.
First of all, the Canary Islands are part of the Spanish immigration
model. I will mention six points of attributes the Islands share with
Spain in general.
1. Immigration in the Canaries is part of what Baldwin-Edwards
(1999) called the Southern European model: many
nationalities, diversified instruction levels, lots of illegal
immigration and informal work, and bilateral agreements on
expulsion and deportation.
2. Immigration has intensified during the last decade, with
particularly high growth of non-EU origins like Latin America,
Africa and Eastern Europe.
3. Immigration in the Canary Islands has generalized its
importance and visibility in all the islands, not only in the
specialized local labour markets like tourism centres or export
agriculture.
4. Due to its recent character, immigration patterns show only a
very small fraction of circular migration. Voluntary returns are
the exception, but might grow in the future.
5. Recent immigration is dominated by labour motives, with very
high activity rates and a young age profile. Many immigrants
can not use their former profession and education.
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6. Immigrants’ work is concentrated in a few occupational niches,
with horizontal and vertical stratification. Hard work, low
salaries. Apart from educational and gender differences, we
observe ethno-stratification.
Despite these aspects the Canary Islands have in common with the
Spanish case, there are also some specific traits we may point out:
1. In historical terms, the Islands always have been a very open
little economy and society, which a demographic regime
characterized by high mobility rates. The Canary Islands never
have been an isolated place and are used to grow on location
economies which derive from their geo-strategic position
between three continents. For example, Columbus stopped at
the Canary Islands before going to America.
2. The Canaries have become more important as a point of entry
for illegal African immigration in the European Union. The
reduction of border permeability in the Mediterranean,
combined with changes in the intra-African migration system,
increased the relative attraction the Islands have as a transit
point. Present initiatives dedicated to increase border control
in the Atlantic may alter this situation in the next years.
3. The Canary Islands are one of the Spanish regions with lots of
European immigrants, particularly English and Germans, who
appreciate the natural conditions for their retirement or work in
the service sector, particularly in tourism.
4. Due to the substantial emigration flows to Cuba and
Venezuela, the Canary Islands maintain migration chains and
networks with these former destinations. In the second half of
the 20th century, return migration dominated the non-European
immigration flows in the Islands. At present, immigration from
Venezuela is still more important in the Canary Islands than on
the Spanish mainland.
5. Economic specialization in tourism induces selective effects in
the composition of immigration flows. Labour demand
expanded heavily during the present growth cycle, especially
in lower instruction levels, in the secondary segment and the
informal economy. This labour demand is very elastic with
respect to changes in economic cycles.
6. The sex ratio of immigration in the Canary Islands is relatively
low, due to the importance of Latin American and European
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origins and the local economic structure. Tourism and
domestic services are among the more important occupations
female immigrants will find in this region.
Once we have got the general picture, we may now proceed to
focus on the irregular African migration arriving in the Canary
Islands by boat. Again I will concentrate on the main facts and
afterwards we can go into details if you wish.
1. The Canaries are islands located on the Southern border of
the European Union. This part of the European border has to
be crossed by plane or boat; you cannot travel easily to other
parts of Europe without documentation. In principle, that
lowers the attractiveness for transit migration, at least if
interception and deportation probabilities are high.
2. Only a very limited fraction (maximum 5%) of irregular
migrants living in the Canary Islands came over from Africa
without documentation and by boat. Most irregular migrants
arrived with tourist visas and overstayed these permits
afterwards. This part of regular entry combined with irregular
staying only may be reduced by internal control mechanisms
and these have low intensity in Spain.
3. The composition of illegal maritime African immigration in the
Canary Islands has changed over the years. The Northern
African origins, very important 10 years ago, are nowadays
less important. The black immigration from Southern-Western
African countries has become dominant. At the same time,
origins got more diversified and include nowadays some transAfrican migrants from Asia.
4. Another change is the growing importance of the so-called
Menores No Acompañados, younger people who have not
reached a stage of adulthood defined by European standards.
These migrants less than 18 years old came to work, cannot
be deported and have to be retained for their “protection”. At
the moment, about 1.200 young African migrants are retained
in so-called “Centros de Acogida de Menores” and the regional
government, competent institution in this issue, has started to
subcontract NGOs located in the Spanish mainland and
demands more help from the national government.
5. The increasing collaboration between Spain and some the
African states in the interception in origin or transit, has altered
migration routes. The boats get bigger (“cayucos” instead of
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“pateras”), the travel time gets longer and more dangerous,
and the arrival points are no longer selected by reason of
geographical proximity. Now Tenerife and Gran Canaria are
the main arrival points and Fuerteventura and Lanzarote are
less important. Technology is of increasing importance (GPS,
mobile phones).
6. The perception of immigration in the Canary Islands has
changed during the last years. At present, many people
perceive immigration as a threat. About two thirds of the local
population think there are too many foreigners in the Islands.
These fears are not simply endogenous, as some politic
parties, the present nationalistic government and part of the
media produce and communicate negative messages on the
issue. Although the highly visible black immigrants do not stay
in the Canary Islands, because nearly all of them are taken to
the mainland, the published image of immigration is the
cayuco arriving at the beach.
7. Knowing that you should not call other people “inferior” or
“unworthy”, the dominant political discourse in the Canary
Islands is shifting gradually towards a different argument: the
lack of carrying capacity. With a high population density, a
supposedly fragile environment, and the ultra-peripheral
position certified by the European Union, the government
systematically talks about over-population and asks for more
population control measures. The advantage of this type of
argument is simple: “it’s nothing personal, it’s not we do not
like you, simply there is no space you can sit down”.
8. If we look at the policies of reception and integration of
immigrants in the Canary Islands, we face two problems
regarding African origins. Number one, the canarian economy
and society have lived completely isolated from African reality.
There are no links you can build on and to most people Africa
only means exotic beauty and extreme poverty. Number two,
local integration policies are weak in the Canary Islands. Apart
from demanding that the central government in Madrid should
do everything necessary to stop immigration, little attention is
given to developing useful tools for integration and migration
management. As a consequence, social empowerment of
immigrants depends exclusively on NGOs and immigrant
organizations.
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I would like to finish this short note by posing some hypotheses
which might be useful for the following debate.
1. After 10 years of intensification, during the next years
immigration intensity will drop in Spain, in general, and in the
Canary Islands, in particular. We already see the first
economic hints. Employment in construction and services is no
longer growing at high rates and the economy of the Canary
Islands is always reacting quicker and stronger than the
Spanish mainland to exogenous shocks and changes in
business cycles. That causes effects in migration. The share
the Canary Islands have in the total foreign population in Spain
has fallen from more than 8 points in 1998 to 5.6 points in
2007.
2. We will see more return migration, circular migration and
family reunification in the next years. Both ingoing and
outgoing flows will be more selective and the South American
origins should lower their participation in new immigration
flows.
3. Although we might be able to reduce irregular migration and
increase regular flows, labour exploitation will not cease if we
do not do anything against the large informal economy through
more internal control. Anyway, increasing labour market
inspection not only affects immigrants.
4. As I said before, the Canary Islands are, in principle, not very
attractive for irregular transit migration, because interception
probabilities are high. If the relative permeability of this part of
the Southern European border will be forced downwards, the
relative attractiveness of alternative routes will improve and
the quota of the route through the Canary Islands will be back
to normal.
5. Regarding perceptions, lower economic growth rates will bring
more unemployment. Official representatives of the regional
government already tell people through the media that
immigration is behind the rising unemployment rates in the
Canary Islands. As always, people will be happy to accept this
scapegoat and employment opportunities open to immigrants
may drop dramatically.
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