Melilla – a Spanish enclave on the Moroccan coast – is one of the gateways to Europe for immigrants from the Maghreb (Northern Africa), sub-Saharan Africa, and Asia.

But the gateway is closed off by what locals call the “valla ,” a formidable wire fence, seven metres high, several layers thick, and wired for rapid response.

“There's a detection system built into the wall,” says Juan Antonio Martin Rivera, and officer at the Guardia Civil police station in Melilla. “When someone touches the outer barrier, an alarm goes off in the Guardia Civil operations centre, and patrol groups are immediately dispatched from there.”

After 2005, when hundreds of people tried to force their way across the border, Spanish authorities set up this highly sophisticated control system, which incorporates multiple steel barriers, alarms, and video surveillance. Today, illegal immigrants know that it is practically impossible to scale the fence.

“If anyone gets over the first barrier and falls in here, these cables are designed to close in and tighten on the individual, which can inflict terrible injuries on the immigrants,” says José Palazon, who heads Prodein (Association for the Defence of Undocumented People).

Nonetheless, every year since 2006, around 600 immigrants have managed to make it into Melilla – there are other ways of getting in, says Palazon.

“At a frontier, if I want to get through, whatever I pay obviously goes to the security forces… For 3,000 euros, you can get over into Melilla and be fairly confident that  your chances of making it are very good," he says.

Some immigrants use false Moroccan papers to get into Melilla, or try to sneak through border crossings undetected – often with the help of professional people-smugglers. At the Beni Anzar customs station, the main crossing point between Morocco and Melilla, agents see ingenious ways of smuggling people inside vehicles, such as a small car with a space under the dashboard to conceal a would-be immigrant.


Once inside, comfort at ‘the hotel,’ transfer to Spain

Once they get into Melilla, undocumented immigrants report to a holding centre run by the Spanish government, the CETI. With running water and free food, the people-smugglers call it the "hotel".

“Here the food and everything, it's all good. The guards, the cooks and the nurses are all kind,” one migrant told FRANCE 24.

The smugglers tell their charges that they must not reveal their country of origin if it has an expulsion agreement with Spain. The idea is to get transferred, under the April 2005 law, to another centre on the Spanish mainland.

“Usually you get taken to another centre. You stay there for a bit too, whilst they sort things out. You leave the CETI to enter normally into society, like anyone,” another migrant said.

After 40 days on mainland Spain, the immigrants are released, and free. They still have no papers, but they cannot be expelled from the country.