Serigne Mbaye knows the power of labels. And symbols.

His friends call him the “Malcolm X of African immigrants.” His political opponents in Spain, where he lives now, falsely call him “illegal” and have suggested deporting him, despite his Spanish citizenship.

Still, he endures. Mbaye is now a deputy in the Madrid Assembly, having made the perilous migration from Senegal in 2006.

In the courtyard of a far more modest house, where Mbaye spent his childhood, his Aunt Ndye Toure insists that she always knew the boy would grow up to be something special.

“He was my darling,” she says. “A hardworking boy with a fighting spirit.”

“Even the smallest baby knows him here,” says Khadim Ngom, a local spear fisherman (in the black wetsuit).

Brightly colored wooden fishing boats called pirogues provide the fishing income that Kayar depends on.

But the factors that spurred Mbaye to leave his home have only gotten worse.

Overfishing from trawlers has decimated fishing stocks.

“It’s been 10 years since we saw sardines here,” says a fisherman named Serigne Mou Diop.

Out on the water, spear fisherman Khadim Ngom plunges under the waves with his mask and fins, weapon in hand.

When he pops his head up at the surface, he says it’s too murky to see any fish. The trawlers have dragged their nets along the bottom, kicking up the dirt on the seafloor.

Where the water meets the land, a two-story concrete building has been exposed like a dollhouse.

Ngom says it was a warehouse for ice to preserve the fresh catch. In 2019, a flood demolished the building.

People who grew up in Melilla remember passing back and forth between Spain and Morocco easily. Journalist Irene Flores says that when she was a child, there was no fence and no border. “It was like a free crossing through a checkpoint.”

Today, the fences are four layers deep, patrolled by armed guards. That armor is paid for by the European Union to repel people who have traveled thousands of miles to enter this fortified city.

This situation gives Morocco a lot of leverage over Europe. Moroccan authorities have the power to crack down on migrants or look the other way and let people through the fence.

So whatever Morocco wants from Europe, whether that’s money or control over the disputed territory of Western Sahara, people trying to reach Melilla become convenient pawns that Morocco can use in this geopolitical chess game.

Right now, the European Union is urging Moroccan authorities to take a hard line against migrants. And that is exactly what Morocco has done.

Steven Khon Khon was one of those who rushed the fence that day.

He and his brother had left South Sudan in 2016 and tried many times to reach Europe by sea from Libya. “The police catch me,” he says. “Sometimes when you’re caught, you’re put in prison six months.”

They eventually decided to try this land crossing instead.

On June 24, Steven made it across the border into Melilla. His brother did not.

Now they are on opposite sides of the fence, in two different countries.

In 2006, Abdulai Beye gave up his life as a fisherman in coastal Senegal to board a boat destined for Spain. He worked 10 years in Spain without papers, and without seeing his wife or son. Now he can go back to visit, and he sends them 2 euros out of every 5 he earns.

“This is harder work, but you can make more money here than in Senegal,” he says. He spends long days bending over raised beds, planting seedlings in the fall and picking berries in the spring.

When he eats fish in Spain, he sometimes thinks about where his meal came from and wonders whether a commercial trawler from Europe pulled it from the Senegalese waters he used to call home.

The settlements where many of these farmworkers live offer a vivid look at the distance between the dream immigrants have of Europe, and the reality.

Mamadou Diop left Senegal in 2019 and lives in a rough shack off the grid, surrounded by hundreds of similar structures.

In Senegal, his family lives in a house with electricity and indoor plumbing. Here, he has none of that.

His 4-year-old daughter says, “Papa, when are you coming home?” He tells her, “When I have my papers.”

Spanish law says people are eligible for permanent residency after they’ve been working three years, as long as they meet certain conditions. That’s more generous than the U.S. and many other countries, but the reality for these guest workers is that it often takes years longer.

The reasons can be varied. Farmers may deny paperwork attesting that they have worked there, or run-ins with police might set back the clock.

As difficult as life here is, Hope Joseph says it’s better than the alternative in Nigeria, where she’s from. “At least my mother won’t be hungry,” she says, adding that she can feed her by sending money back to Nigeria. “Back in Africa, I cannot feed anybody.”

Her family calls her a “pillar,” which makes her proud, even if she struggles to survive in the chaos of working without papers in Spain.

These settlements provide useful talking points for anti-immigrant politicians.

“We’re sorry to see the situation that many migrants experience in Europe,” says Rafael Segovia, the local president of the far-right Vox party.

He specifically worries that international refugee law will begin to recognize people displaced by climate change.

“If we hope to defend our cultural identity, we need to reject the idea of the climate refugee,” he says. “If that notion is accepted, all these illegal migrants would have to be admitted because they would legally be considered refugees.”

It was the first job Serigne Mbaye had when he arrived in Spain in 2006.

“I thought, is this what I came to this country for? This can’t be my destiny,” he recalls. “But there’s nothing else you can do.”

He had the bad luck of being arrested the very first day he went out to sell things.

Then he got organized.

After four years of moving between various jobs, including construction and elder care, Mbaye secured his citizenship and helped open a restaurant.

In 2015, he helped establish the first manteros collective.

He feels it, but it doesn’t deter him.

“Honestly, it is a lot of pressure. That’s why I have to think carefully about every single word, every step I take,” he says.

“Because it’s not just me. It’s the whole community.”