An "illegal" protocol forces Irún police to pick up immigrants rejected by France

The protocol that the Irún Police Station has in place to assume the return of migrants who have already crossed into France keeps the national police officers of the Basque municipality with their swords raised.

Irún, on the border with the French town of Hendaye, is one of the hot spots for the so-called secondary migratory flows, that is, of those who, after reaching Spain from Africa, continue their journey to other European countries.. Despite the fact that the border is within the Schengen area -of free movement of people and goods- and is, therefore, an internal border in which, according to the law, rejection practices do not fit, the Police Station is executing them with orders very precise.

The coordinates of the “Protocol of action in the event of rejections” to which this newspaper has had access consist of keeping all agents on alert so that, in the event of any requirement from France, they go to the pass to pick up migrants at any time and under all kinds of circumstances.

“This protocol has no place at an internal border. It's completely illegal. The figure of Ceuta and Melilla, which are external borders, has been imposed in Irún”, clarifies an agent of the Immigration Brigade after harshly questioning this practice.

In addition, he also wonders about the “legality” that the same person can have two open files: one when he reached Spain from Africa and the other in transit between Irún and Hendaye.

Likewise, a broad sector of agents consulted agree that the problem of the Basque city, they conclude, “is the statistics”. They ensure that each return is counted as an arrest and that, on occasions, they have even had to take care of minors and pregnant women.

Instead of applying the figure contained in the so-called Malaga agreement, which speaks of “readmission” whose bases are clear and immovable – the dossier states that to accept a migrant you have to verify their circumstances and then decide whether or not to accept them – the order makes use of the word “rejection”. This route exempts them from carrying out checks since all readmission is governed by a strict rule.

The Protocol for action against refusals puts in writing, for example, how to filter affiliations, how agents have to go to the border crossing every time they are required and even contemplates the refusal of the troops to carry out the order.

“In the event of a negative response from the person in charge of controls due to the need for reinforcement personnel, he must notify the room manager” to inform the French authorities “if the service can be carried out or not”. The questioned order has a clear objective: “to give an agile and effective response to Spanish-French collaboration in terms of rejection at borders.”

The high number of migrants that Irún concentrates also poses a problem for the NGOs that attend to them since the resources to do so remain small.. The Basque city denounces that it is overwhelmed with sub-Saharan Africans that the French Police return.

«They are returns that do not proceed under any circumstances. They are not acting in accordance with the law,” claims a worker from one of the humanitarian organizations that operate in Irún. The Jupol union also questioned the orders of the Irún Police Station, which are even posted on its premises.

“It is a protocol designed to deal quickly and effectively with all those returns that occur, regardless of whether they are legally correct.. It shows, without a doubt, that the returns by the French Police are not specific cases as stated by the Ministry of the Interior or the Government Delegation, “insists the group.

«From Jupol we have denounced in recent years the statistical pressure to which the Irún police are subjected, the lack of security in the controls, the lack of material and human resources, the high volume of returns practiced by France, even returning immigrants by train commuter, or unmarked vans.

The Ministry of the Interior, for its part, indicated that “the only readmissions that are carried out are those regulated in the 2022 agreement” and regarding the protocol indicated that “to be aware that all readmissions between the two countries in both directions are made legally.”