Parliament speaker and ombudsman call for closure of migrant detention centers

Catalan parliament speaker Roger Torrent and ombudsman Rafael Ribó have called for the closure of migrant detention centers at a press conference held outside Barcelona's Zona Franca CIE on Friday.

Complaining that Spanish interior minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska has never granted them permission to enter the Zona Franca detention center and assess conditions at the only center of its kind in Catalonia, Torrent described them as the "greatest exponents of institutional racism."

"Racism is not something foreign," that only happens in the United States, Torrent claimed, adding that "many of those who are deprived of their freedom have not even committed a crime but are in an irregular administrative situation."

Ribó also shared some harsh words about migrant detention centers, calling them "the instruments that least respect rights of the European Union."