From ‘Dock of Shame’ to Papal embrace: Leo XIV visits Canary Islands migrant hub

Pope Leo XIV is visiting the Canary Islands on Thursday to draw attention to the plight of migrants who risk their lives every year trying to reach Europe, fulfilling a wish of Pope Francis to visit one of the epicenters of the European migration debate.

- By NICOLE WINFIELD

Leo is spending the final two days of his weeklong trip to Spain in the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago closer to Africa than the Iberian Peninsula and a key point of entry for migrants smuggled from West Africa.

He is meeting with recently arrived migrants and representatives of the church and humanitarian organizations that care for them and work to integrate them into Spanish society.

Most poignantly, he will commemorate the thousands of lives lost at sea from a port that in 2020 became known as the “dock of shame” because of the squalid conditions migrants lived in when they came ashore during a spike in arrivals.

Spain's Socialist-led government, which had been shamed by the 2020 crisis, has bucked a trend in Europe and the United States by defending immigration on economic and humanitarian grounds. It launched a legalization push earlier this year for hundreds of thousands of immigrants without authorization.

Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has highlighted the benefits to the economy with an aging workforce and low birth rate.