Pope visiting ‘dock of shame’ in Canary Islands

BARCELONA
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.
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 that is 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 has launched a legalization push earlier this year for hundreds of thousands of immigrants without authorization.Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has highlighted the benefits to the economy with an aging workforce and low birth rate.A historic speech defends dignity of migrants
Leo has already called for strengthened international efforts to prevent human smuggling of migrants, the creation of safe pathways for them to move legally and development in countries of origin so more people can choose to stay home.
In a speech to the Spanish Parliament earlier this week, the first-ever by a pope, Leo demanded welcome and integration for those who do choose to flee, insisting on their inherent human dignity.
“The moral greatness of a nation is manifested, above all, in its capacity to accompany, protect and love those lives that are most fragile,” Leo said in a speech that also upheld the inherent dignity of the unborn, the elderly and sick. He received a 7-minute standing ovation at the end.
Migrant arrivals in the Canary Islands peaked in 2024 at nearly 47,000, but have fallen dramatically, with just over 2,000 people landing there in the first four months of 2026. Upon his arrival in Las Palmas, Leo was to head to Arguineguin, where in 2020 arrivals reached such numbers that migrants were forced to sleep in makeshift camps in the open air on a dock that became known as the “dock of shame.”