#Hot_returns. When the State acts outside the law. Legal report.
“Hot returns” is the term coined popularly to the action carried out by the law enforcement authorities and consists of handing the foreign citizens who have been intercepted by those authorities in the area under Spanish sovereignty over to the Moroccan authorities on a de facto basis without carrying out the legally established procedures or meeting the internationally acknowledged guarantees. Images, witnesses and other numerous sources with evidential value accredit such practices in the cities of Ceuta” and Melilla and the small islands under Spanish sovereignty.
This report is aimed at (I) establishing that “hot returns” breach the immigration legislation (II) and the lack of a legal basis of the Spanish Ministry of the Interior’s attempts to justify the “hot returns” based on the concept of an “operational” border (III), the irregular entry through unauthorised border posts (IV) and the agreement between Spain and Morocco regarding the circulation of people, transit and readmission of foreigners who enter illegally (V). Likewise, this report sets out the reasons why a possible reform of the immigration legislation to provide legal coverage to these types of practices would contravene EU regulations and international human rights law, which would expressly discredit them (VI). This report ends with reflections about the criminal implications for those who order, execute or allow “hot returns”
#Ceuta #Melilla #expulsion #refoulement #Maroc #Espagne #migration #frontière #réfugiés #asile #devoluciones_en_caliente