UPDATED: Spain takes "refugees" Italy refused, with predictable results

In mid-June, the new Italian government, elected on an anti-immigrant platform, put its foot down and refusesd to allow a boatload of bogus "refugees" -- economic migrants, really -- to dump its cargo of mostly black, mostly Muslim third-worlders on Italian shores. See "New Italian government turns back boatload of 'refugees'", WWW 11/6/18. "Enough is enough!" said Interior Minister Matteo Salvini. "Saving lives is a duty, but transforming Italy into an enormous refugee camp isn't. We're closing the ports!"

After much hand-wringing and tut-tutting by the EU, the Vatican and the usual gang of SJWs, Spain finally agreed to take the 269 "refugees", but only temporarily of course, since they expected the itinerant welfare-seekers to move on to places which offered more generous benefits. Like Sweden, or Britain, or Angela Merkel's Germany, where Willkommenskultur reigns supreme, in spite of the feelings of the German people.

So Spain took them. And guess what? The word got out! "Hey, fellow asylum-seekers! Set your boats of a northwest course. Spain is the new Canada!" Surprise, surprise for the Spaniards, and not a pleasant one either. This weekend Spain's coastguard union warned that the service was "completely overwhelmed" by a dramatic rise in the number of migrant crossings. The "extraordinary upturn" in arrivals meant "an absolute overflow of work" for maritime rescue centres, the union said, issuing an urgent call for more resources to help it cope with the "massive arrival of immigrants" on the country's shores.

On Friday morning alone, the Spanish coastguard pulled 627 people from 35 rafts in the Strait of Gibraltar yesterday morning, bringing arrivals to more than 2000 this week. Dozens more were also picked up in Murcia, Majorca and Alicante. By an accident of history, Spain still owns two tiny enclaves on the coast of north Africa. On Thursday, more than 600 border-jumpers forced their way through the border fence at one of them -- Ceuta. The unions representing the Spanish Civil guard called the incursions "well-planned" and "of unprecedented violence".

In the Spanish province of Andalusia, authorities are sounding the alarm over the surge in arrivals, noting that reception centres are saturated and migrants being forced to sleep in converted sports halls, on boats and in one case on a police station patio. Spain is now the largest gateway for migrants crossing the Mediterranean to Europe, with 20,992 people having landed so far this year. That's 3000 more, now, than have landed in Italy in the same time period. A week earlier the difference was about 200.

The Spanish government blames the increase on the crackdown on the Mediterranean route from Libya to Italy. The fact that, like Canada's gaga Prime Minister Trudeau, they rolled out the welcome mat for "refugees" who now turn out to be not so welcome, had nothing to do with the crisis.

UPDATE ADDED 1/8/18 - Further reading: "Boat Migrants Down 80 Percent in Populist Italy, up 350 Percent in Socialist Spain", Breitbart News 1/8/18 - The number of migrant sea arrivals in populist Italy, so far in 2018, is down 80 percent compared to last year, whilst surging by over 350 percent in the same period in socialist Spain.