The Jesuit Migrant Service, SJM, has presented in the Spanish Senate the CIE 2021 Report "Hostile Territory: different forms of hostility in the CIE". In this annual document, an analysis of the situations and conditions of the CIE, Centers for the Internment of Foreigners, during the year 2021 has been carried out. The event was moderated by Mª Carmen De la Fuente, SJM coordinator, Ana Bosch from Pueblos Unidos and author of the report, Eleva Davara as a volunteer of the CIE visiting team in Madrid, Josetxo Ordóñez from Migra Studium and author of the report, and Josep Buades (Director of the Claver-SJM Association) as the main author of the report.

The year 2021 has been marked by the strict Covid-19 protocols and this, in addition to poor health care, has contributed to worsen the situation of isolation of people interned in these centers, affecting their mental health.

This lack of optimal medical resources can be seen not only in terms of the pandemic but also in the lack of privacy for patients or the scarcity of health resources to attend to people and, in addition, a lack of attention to problems related to mental health, aggravated in most cases by the confinement and poor conditions.

In this report they have focused their gaze and their denunciation on three forms of hostility in the CIE:

1. Obstacles to the reporting and investigation of police aggressions.
2. Deficiencies in medical-health care.
3. Obstacles to visits by social organizations.

All these hostilities result in untenable situations for the migrants interned in the centers, whose rights are violated every day they are locked up in unhealthy and inhumane conditions.

In addition, many of these people interned in the CIE are adolescents, minors without a specific age. Without supporting documentation from their place of origin, medical age determination tests prevail. The performance of these tests lengthens the period of time they spend locked up in the CIE, worsening their physical and mental situation. Thus, the legal obligation that the best interest of the minor prevails is blurred or disappears.

Social organizations, which continue to call for the closure of CIEs, given the current improbability of their disappearance, are constantly mobilizing to improve conditions in these centers and to provide support to the people interned.

• The full CIE 2021 Report can be downloaded here.
• The executive summary can be downloaded here.
• The abridged version, in Catalan, can be downloaded here.

The abridged version in English, you can download it here.

Source: Servicio Jesuita a Migrantes