Migration balance 2020

In the year that is ending, migrations have been the subject of a good number of informative and opinion pieces in the written and audiovisual media. Different facts related to them have deserved the attention of information professionals, who have continued to consider them a relevant issue for their readers, listeners or viewers.

On the other hand, artistic productions have once again brought out the close relationship between the artist and the world: creations from different disciplines, far from removing themselves from the world around them, have found inspiration in it, transforming it aesthetically into words (narrative, poetry) and images (painting, documentary film, fiction - series, films). In the subject under discussion, migrations have provided creators with a reference point on which to weave their verbal and iconic discourses: creative works that are explained by the social and political context in which they originate and which, at the same time, help to explain that reality from which they arise. Social urgency invades the mind of the artist, in whose work politics and poetry, aestheticisation of reality and "realisation" of aesthetic communication are interwoven.

In the first months of the year, the health crisis had a direct impact on migratory flows: the decrease in the arrival of foreigners to the European continent as a result of the closure of borders was noted; there was greater difficulty in deploying common migratory policies (operations for the arrival and distribution of refugees or, where appropriate, the return of migrants); and the difficult living conditions of migrants already settled in EU territory were also highlighted. It is precisely this last issue that Pedro Costa's most recent film, 'Vitalina Varela', deals with. From a risky and demanding aesthetic proposal, it shows us the lives of Cape Verdean emigrants in Portugal.

In this first third of the year, the first signs of two events occurred that, months later, captured the attention of the media and European citizens: the situation in the refugee camps (specifically, the one that was taking place in the Moria camp on the island of Lesbos, which at that time was already hosting 20 people). 000 people); and the gradual increase (although still small at the time) in the flow of boats with migrants to the Canary Islands, mainly as a result of the isolation and confinement measures taken in Morocco and Spain, which made it extraordinarily difficult for boats to arrive across the Mediterranean. Realities such as these inspire Paula Palacios' documentary Cartas mojadas, which transfers to us in images the tragedy of the migrants who cross the Mediterranean by different routes (from Turkey to Lesbos; from Libya to Sicily) in search of the European dream.

In June, the US Supreme Court rejected by a slim majority (five votes against four) the Trump Administration's request to outlaw the DACA (the immigration relief programme for undocumented young people initiated by Barack Obama in 2012) and therefore decided to keep it in force. The first days of August, Netflix released the documentary series 'Immigration Nation', which showed the consequences of the immigration policies promoted by President Trump during his mandate, approaching the facts in a contained way and with the intention of truthfulness.

The summer ended with two events that once again highlighted Europe's contradictions in migration issues: the news of the fire at the Moria refugee camp and the presentation of the EU's long-awaited migration plan on 23 September. Although the extreme situation of the Moria refugee camp had already been the subject of attention before the health crisis, repeated requests from different international organisations for the camp to be evacuated urgently had no effect, triggering an end that was no less tragic.

As far as the EU Migration and Asylum Pact is concerned, the assessments made by third sector organisations showed their disappointment at the greater importance given to security and border issues by the European Commission, to the detriment of measures relating to the integration of migrants in host societies. The Commission, for its part, insisted that the document was aimed at creating the conditions for Member States to discuss an issue that deeply divided them, in an attempt to redirect the debate from the emotional level to political negotiation.

In the last months of the year, almost at the time of publication of these lines, the Arguineguín dock summarises the umpteenth migration crisis on the southern European border, highlighting the lack of foresight and coordination of Spanish migration policy, and causing (once again) a media distortion of the image of migration, an image monopolised almost exclusively by the border situations created by the arrivals of migrants.

Luis Guerra, Professor of Spanish Language at the European University of Madrid, is one of the main researchers of the INMIGRA3-CM project, financed by the Community of Madrid and the European Social Fund