The President of the Balearics, Marga Prohens, has accused the central government of abandoning the Balearics in the face of irregular immigration. | Photo: Majorca Daily Bulletin reporter
Humphrey CarterPalma20/10/2026 12:11
The President of the Balearics, Marga Prohens, has accused the central government of abandoning the Balearics in the face of irregular immigration and has argued that if migrants can be returned directly from Ceuta, “it must also be possible to do so on the islands”. “There isn’t room for everyone here,” she stated.
Prohens warned that the Balearics cannot continue to grow, either in terms of tourist numbers or population, in the speech with which she opened Tuesday’s general policy debate on the region at the Parliament’s plenary session.
“No, there isn’t room for everyone here. And there is certainly no room for irregular immigration; there is no room for those who do not come to contribute, who do not come to integrate, who do not come to respect our laws and our values,” she said.
She stated that, over the last five years, 25,000 illegal immigrants have arrived in small boats and warned of “overcrowding” in the reception of unaccompanied migrant children, who currently number more than 900 – “more than double the standard capacity unilaterally set by the Ministry of Children itself”.
She emphasised the “critical situation in Formentera”, where 3,266 migrants have arrived by small boat this year, “on an island with a population of less than 12,000” and which is hosting more than 250 unaccompanied children and teenagers, representing “one unaccompanied migrant child for every 46 inhabitants”.
The Balearic president has accused the central government of “looking the other way” in the face of this situation and has criticised the fact that “not only is it failing to apply return mechanisms, but it is even going against the European Union, being the only country to vote against the Return Regulation”, and has also approved a regularisation process which she considers to “encourage a pull factor”.
According to Prohens, the crisis in Ceuta has shown “the extent of its neglect and abdication of its duties. And we are seeing how what we were told for so long – that it was impossible to deal with illegal immigration and return irregular migrants – is now, suddenly, beginning to happen in Ceuta,” she said. “Defending our borders and promoting legal and orderly immigration means defending the Balearics,” she concluded.