On September 15, thousands of migrants stormed the wire fence border that divides Morocco from the Spanish territory Ceuta after incitement from a social media campaign. Moroccan security sent in reinforcements and rounded up all the migrants before they crossed.

Two days later, violence surged again as migrants returned to the border and started throwing stones at police. 60 were arrested, according to the AFP news agency, in a two-day operation. The charges include, “‘fabricating and disseminating false information on social media’ to encourage a collective illegal border crossing.”

The Spanish exclave Ceuta, on the coast of Morocco, has been struggling with mass waves of migrants attempting to cross the border to get into the European Union. It’s an autonomous city under Spanish rule and a major entry point for migrants. In August, Moroccan authorities blocked over 11, 300 attempts into Ceuta. As Moroccans, and many other African migrants, try to immigrate to the EU, they face another difficulty: high visa rejection rates.

A report from Henley & Partners (H&P), an immigration consulting agency, showed that African countries face some of the highest rejection rates for Schengen visas. The Schengen area comprises 29 countries in much of mainland Europe. The visa allows non-EU nationals to stay for 90 days when granted permission. The report stated that “Africa accounted for seven of the top ten countries with the highest Schengen visa rejection rates” and listed the factors that may have played a role in this. Firstly, if the consulates doubt the migrant will return to their country before the visa expires, their visa is likely to be denied. Immigrants seeking better economic opportunities in the EU are assumed to stay long term, making the overstay claim common grounds for a Schengen visa rejection.

Second, H&P claims that there’s a relationship between the passport power of the person’s country of origin and the visa rejection. African countries that score low on the gross national income per capita rankings, simultaneously score low on the Henley Passport Index (HPI) – a measure of the number of countries a passport can grant a person access to without a visa. They claim that a lower ranking on the index can be seen as a correlation to restricted social mobility opportunities in the person’s country of origin.  So for asylum applicants that are perceived as economic migrants, their chances of rejection increases.

Kenyan Princeton student, Charles Ochieng, shares his personal experience with the process saying, “The Greek consulate in Kenya was very inefficient. The Schengen visa is kind of complicated to get”. He shares his mother’s experience with the visa process, concluding that it can be difficult to go through the process from an African country.

Project Lead of Princeton’s Liechtenstein Institute on Self-Determination (LISD) Africa Program, Dr. Barbara Buckin, has this to say on potential social/racial biases involved in the decision-making process:

“It’s difficult to tell. Racism doesn’t fully explain why, for example, Nigerians are deported at much higher rates than Iraqis.” She explains that there’s a presumption that sub-Saharan African countries are safe since they’re not experiencing armed conflict. “I suppose you could say the system has a blind spot about economic deprivation — the desperation of a very poor person is not necessarily less worthy of our concern than the desperation of a persecuted minority.”

An AP News article on Morocco and Spain’s efforts to tackle illegal migrations reports on their signed deals to manage migration and boost Spanish investment in Morocco. The investment was an $873 million package to encourage Spanish firms to invest in Morocco and reinforce illegal immigration prevention in the Spanish exclave.

Tendekai Mawokomatanda, a Princeton student involved in the LISD Africa Program, shares his concerns about the potential instability that could arise in the country, saying, “While it’s good for [Spain’s] firms to invest in Morocco, [this] also allows for elitism, because those firms would tend to hire certain people within Morocco or invest in certain areas that are already nice.”

Dr. Buckin is also skeptical of this strategy as there isn’t enough reason to expect any economic plan aiming to boost development in Africa would lower immigration rates. She says that as more development lifts individuals into the middle class, more opportunities are available for migrants to finance their journeys North. “There is [also] a population boom, so even if the rate of emigration were to decline, there would still be far more migrants in absolute terms”.

Although the visa struggles remain, Moroccans stay determined as another social media campaign calls for an attempt to cross the border on Monday, September 30th.