The extraordinary regularization of migrants that in recent days has left Although specialists criticize the lack of transparency regarding how many people are interned, in 2024 a total of 1,863 people passed through these detention centres, according to the latest report from the Jesuit Migrant Service. Among them were 85 women and 853 applicants for international protection, and almost half were not repatriated, according to the entity. The same entity denounced in the report the lack of public information to periodically know data on internment.

Hidden in the Free Trade Zone, between factories and warehouses, far from tourist Barcelona, lies the Barcelona Immigrant Detention Centre (CIE). Hundreds of people are held captive in the facilities for a maximum of 60 days. “Weeks are spent deprived of liberty in very harsh conditions simply for not having papers,” explains Cel Far, a social educator who has visited the detainees with the Migra Studium organisation. The reality is that most of those who end up in the CIE have not committed any crime: last year, only 7% of detainees had been convicted.