In March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the impossibility of maintaining health measures in confinement conditions, Migrant Detention Centres (CIE) in Spain were shut down. 

These centres were designed mainly to hold migrants due to be returned to other countries, but also house many people awaiting a decision in their refugee determination process. They have been criticised for the limited access they provide for such individuals to the asylum process. 

In total, it is estimated that 450 people were released from these centres during the pandemic. However - and despite the Spanish government having recently declared a new state of emergency - the Ministry of the Interior has now announced that it will reopen the CIE.

During the last state of emergency it was not possible to return detainees due to worldwide border closures. Now that many borders are remaining open and migrants can be returned, the Ministry of the Interior said: 'We are ready to resume this return policy. The reopening is for everything immediately'.

This is bad news for those migrants who will now be forced to endure difficult conditions in the CIE, and also for the NGOs and institutions that had been hoping the centres would remain permanently shut.

Read more on the re-opening of the centres here.