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Vol. 72/No. 15      April 14, 2008

 
Immigration debated in Spain
 
BY EMILY PAUL  
Immigrant rights is a sharply debated issue in Spain, where foreign-born now account for 4.5 million of the country’s 44 million people. The immigrant population has more than quadrupled in the past seven years to 10 percent of the population, one of the highest proportions of immigrants to native-born in Europe. The largest immigrant populations in Spain come from Ecuador, Morocco, and Romania.

In 2005, under the Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) government, a “regularization” process was carried out that granted residency to an estimated 700,000 undocumented immigrants.

During the recent presidential elections, Mariano Rajoy of the conservative Popular Party denounced the SP stand on immigration as too permissive. PSOE leader and prime minister José Rodríguez Zapatero defended the amnesty for undocumented workers, saying it meant increased contributions by immigrants to the social security system and helped solve labor shortages in industries like construction.

After a decade-long boom, construction, which accounts for 18 percent of the Spanish economy, is slowing noticeably. Rajoy said he would expel immigrants who become unemployed and argued that Spanish citizens will have to compete with immigrants for jobs, school placements, and hospital beds if the economy enters a period of low growth.

He also proposed a legally binding “integration contract,” in which immigrants would agree to uphold the Spanish Constitution, learn the Spanish language, and return home if they become unemployed or commit a crime. Following the precedent in France, Rajoy also proposed banning the Islamic headscarf from public schools.

Immigrants have come under physical attack as well. Last October the racist beating of a 17-year-old Ecuadoran woman on a Barcelona train sparked international outrage. The Association of Moroccan Immigrant Workers reported two attacks on their offices within a year. Last December, “Moors out of the neighborhood” was spray-painted on the office building next to a swastika, referring to people from northwest Africa.

The SP won the election, although it fell short of winning an absolute majority in parliament. Shortly before the vote, in a March 7 interview with the Spanish daily El País, Zapatero was asked what he was going to do about the estimated 250,000 undocumented immigrants currently in the country. He said undocumented immigrants should be deported and that there would not be another regularization process.

“We have established agreements with African countries and we are carrying out deportations,” he continued. “We are deporting many.”
 
 
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