SPAIN: Surging immigration tests Spanish tolerance.

Record ID: 348923

  • Title: SPAIN: Surging immigration tests Spanish tolerance.
  • Date: 31st May 2006
  • Summary: WIDE SHOTS/CLOSE UPS IMMIGRANTS IN QUEUE TO PROCESS RESIDENCE AND WORK PERMITS (6 SHOTS)
  • Embargoed: 15th June 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Spain
  • Country: Spain
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA2VH0YL0FN2LHMUBKW99FRYM5F
  • Story Text: As the number of African boat people arriving at the Canary Islands increases every day and protection centres are packed with thousands of them, Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has asked Spaniards for a civilised attitude towards the issue and to remember their own migratory past.
    "Spain has been a country of immigrants and we all know what that represents, therefore we should give those who come from abroad the same treatment that we have demanded when our nationals have gone go and seek a better future outside our borders.", Zapatero said in his State of the Nation address on Tuesday (May 30). Zapatero's words have been taken by public as a response to a recent wave of criticism from his political opponents in regards to his immigration policies. A poll conducted for Monday's El Mundo newspaper showed 70 percent of Spaniards think the country has too many migrants, 10 percentage points more than a similar poll just five months ago. The poll suggests that Spain's long tolerant attitude to immigration seems to be hardening amid constant news of African boat people.
    The poll showed 70 percent also thought the government's amnesty for about 600,000 illegal immigrants last year had prompted a five-fold increase in the number of Africans landing illegally in the Canary Islands.
    Spain's Socialist government is now struggling to contain this flow of rickety wooden vessels, sending more patrol boats to the Canaries and demanding help from Brussels.
    It has also moved more police to Catalonia, where officials blame an explosion in violent burglaries on east European gangs. Kidnappings in Madrid have also surged.
    The leader of the conservative Popular Party (PP) Mariano Rajoy has accused the government of losing control of Spain's borders and unleashing a crime wave, advising that the conservative Popular Party (PP) will not support any more plans for such amnesties.
    "I am not in favour and I am not going to support any more massive legalisations because that is not usual anymore in any European country. I want an international policy that complies with the law and to defend our borders," he said on Sunday (May 28) at a rally in Valencia.
    Attitudes towards migrants in Spain -- almost completely white and Catholic until the 1990s -- have been long tolerant.
    Support for far-right parties is low and violence against ethnic minorities rare, even in the wake of Islamist bombings in Madrid two years ago.
    As recently as 2001, there were one million foreigners here legally. But the country is now the European Union's number one migrant destination and government figures show 2.7 million legal migrants in December 2005 -- 39 percent more than in 2004.
    As a result of last year's amnesty, thousands of immigrants spend long hours in queue at immigration centres to request residence and work permits. The results of the recent poll indicating the excess of immigrants in Spain have upset many of them.
    "I think there are not as many immigrants in this country now as the number of Spaniards that were in my country (Argentina) in past decades. I also think that we are all citizens of the World and they (governments) could globalise humanity in the same way they are globalising economies," said Patricia, an Argentine factory worker who came to Spain running away from the economy crisis in her country. Patricia Argerey, professor of the European Studies Institute of Madrid, said the current situation has to be treated in a very careful way by governments, politicians and media.
    "The issue of immigration in Spain is not limited to boats with two, three or five hundred immigrants arriving at the Canary coasts. This is a much bigger issue and therefore we have to be very careful to approach it and to design appropriate immigration policies to avoid any racist or xenophobic attitudes," she told Reuters.
    Migrants, many of whom come from Latin America, Morocco and Eastern Europe, are vital in filling gaps in the service sector, becoming builders for a booming construction industry and by taking menial jobs Spaniards no longer want.
    Almost every night Spanish television shows a fresh batch of sub-Saharan Africans arriving on beaches in the Canaries -- over 9,000 have made the dangerous voyage so far this year.
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