Advocates complain about Spain's plan for "on-the-spot" deportations of migrants from Africa

It is a photograph that tells the story of two very different worlds.

Perched on top of a fence that divides Morocco from the Spanish territory of Melilla, African migrants wait for a chance to jump -- while they watch white-clad Spaniards below, playing on a well-groomed golf course.

The photo is adding fuel to the debate in Spain about African migrants trying to cross into Spain. And now, the Spanish government says it will change laws to allow for "on-the-spot" deportations.

But local activists, as well as the UN Refugee Agency and Amnesty International, are warning against doing that. They say it's illegal, and it will further harm the ability of asylum seekers to make their claim in a legal setting. 

 

Virginia Alvarez, of Amnesty International in Spain, tells As It Happens host Carol Off that many migrants are "just waiting in the forest in Morocco...and they try to jump the fence in large groups, the fence is quite high and also it has barbed wire, there's a lot of surveillance so what they do is they try to jump in big groups...this is the case in Melilla."

About the photo showing the migrants, the fence and the golfers, Alvarez tells Carol: "near that luxury golf course and the fence there is also the camp for migrants and asylum-seekers that are kept for many months in very bad conditions. So when you are there you can't believe what you are seeing."

Virginia Alvarez [PHOTO: Amnesty International, Spain]