'Moroccans are desperate: Years of political crackdown and lack of economic opportunities'

• François Picard is pleased to welcome Aida Alami, New York Times World contributor.
• Drawing on her own field reporting at the Moroccan border, Alami challenges attempts to explain the mass crossing primarily through a theory of deliberate state orchestration.
• While acknowledging both Morocco’s history of leveraging migration in its relations with Spain and the possibility that security forces made