Spain has become a key destination for migrants entering the EU. But the Spanish government has no plans to deter them. This sentiment is an exception and has only recently come up against local resistance.
In Spain, migrants are not a polarizing issue. It is one of the few European countries that routinely grants legal status to thousands of undocumented individuals.
Jesus Merida / Imago
The tone in European migration policy is rough. Deterrent measures such as pushbacks, border controls and the suspension of EU asylum law are not just fiercely debated – they are already being implemented. Brussels is even experimenting with outsourcing asylum procedures to other countries, despite early setbacks. Italy’s attempt to push asylum-seekers to Albania, for example, has yet to bear fruit.
The situation is different in Spain. The country on the EU’s external border has become one of the main destinations for migrants coming to Europe in recent years. With around 700,000 asylum applications since 2015, it ranks among the top four countries with the most applications. In addition, it has taken in more than 220,000 refugees from Ukraine. Every month, the Spanish border authorities register an average of 5,000 undocumented border crossings.
Nonetheless, in Spain, as Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has repeatedly emphasized recently, migrants are welcome.
Spain – and Europe as a whole – must decide whether it wants to remain «open and prosperous» or «closed and poor» in the future, he explained in a speech on asylum policy in the Spanish parliament and in conversations during the EU migration summit in Brussels.
Pathway to legalization for rejected asylum-seekers
The Socialist leader has also campaigned for a reform of Spanish immigration law, aimed at easing access to the labor market for migrants and should come into force this year. Shorter deadlines for residence and work permits are planned, from which immigrant students, job seekers, families – and rejected asylum-seekers in particular – stand to benefit.
Under the new regulation, rejected asylum-seekers who have lived in Spain illegally for more than six months will have the chance to legalize their status by applying for a residence permit. It is uncertain how many of those rejected could benefit from this measure. At the end of 2023 alone, over 60,000 rejected asylum-seekers were still in Spain, despite being obliged to leave the country.
This would mark Spain’s second legalization initiative for undocumented migrants this year. In April, a broad majority in parliament voted in favor of a law that provides for the extraordinary legalization of up to 500,000 immigrants who arrived in the country before 2021.
According to the government, Spain’s decision to permanently welcome hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants, even as European leaders push for stricter deportation policies, is driven by economic necessity. The country has emerged as Europe’s growth engine. Investments from the pandemic recovery and resilience plan, state energy price subsidies and a booming tourism sector are boosting the economy – the International Monetary Fund is forecasting growth of just under 3% for this year .
Sánchez’s government argues that immigration is necessary to counteract the shortage of skilled workers and demographic change. The current unemployment rate of 11.8% remains unmentioned. Although it is the lowest rate in 15 years, it is still the highest in the EU.
The Spanish know what immigration means
But economic factors are not the only motivation behind the left-leaning government’s push for a more open migration policy: «We Spaniards are the children of immigration, we will not be the parents of xenophobia,» Sánchez recently reminded MPs in parliament. He was referring to the times when hundreds of thousands of Spaniards emigrated and sought a better life in other countries – be it during the fascist dictatorship under Franco or more recently after the severe economic crisis of 2012.
Just 10 years ago, more people emigrated from Spain than immigrated to the country. This may be one reason why the immigration issue is hardly seen as a problem by the population. Surveys have shown for years that only a small percentage of Spaniards perceive migration as a major problem.
In the past, this sentiment only changed when Spanish border patrols on the Canary Islands or at the land border with Morocco reported sharp increases in undocumented border crossings. The biggest outcry came in 2006, when thousands of migrants from Senegal and Mauritania arrived in Spain via Morocco for the first time. But the concern subsided as soon as the government took action.
Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero negotiated agreements with Morocco to enforce strict border controls on land and at sea. These deals later became a blueprint for later EU agreements with Turkey and Tunisia. Even under Pedro Sánchez, the border agreement with Morocco remains a central pillar of Spanish migration policy. Pushbacks have long been part of everyday life.
Welcoming Latin Americans, reluctant about Africans
For Sánchez, immigration from Africa is a politically sensitive issue. Recent reports of high numbers of undocumented border crossings from West Africa have led to a fivefold increase in the proportion of Spaniards who consider migration to be a major problem. In January, when the number of crossings was low, only 6% of Spaniards considered it an issue; by early October that figure rose to 30%. The Canary Islands are overwhelmed and for months there has been a dispute between the central government and Spain’s mostly conservative regional presidents about a fairer distribution of migrants, especially minors, throughout the country.
Despite fortified borders and substantial aid to origin countries, Spain remains a key destination for refugees, widely seen as migration-friendly by European standards – a sentiment rooted in the fact that Spain’s population has not yet seen migrants as a major problem.
Juan Medina / Reuters
However, migrants from Africa play a rather minor role compared to overall immigration in Spain. The majority of migrants come from Latin America, particularly from countries such as Venezuela, Colombia and Honduras. They enter the country as tourists, apply for asylum and often work in sectors with high labor demand, such as domestic service, construction, agriculture and hospitality.
Migrants from former Spanish colonies are particularly welcomed – even by conservative circles and despite the fact that their asylum applications may have been rejected and that they may remain in Spain undocumented. Even the far-right populist Vox party welcomes them. These migrants share a common language, culture, religion and history, emphasizes party leader Santiago Abascal. The situation is different with immigrants from African countries. The party has developed the slogan «Más muros y menos moros,» or more walls and fewer Moors, an allusion to the Muslim Berbers and Arabs who occupied part of the Iberian Peninsula in the Middle Ages.
In contrast to other far-right populist parties in Europe, however, Vox has not yet had any resounding success in Spain with its anti-migration slogans. In the last elections, the party achieved around 12% of the vote; in current polls, its popularity is around 10%. This puts it in third place behind the conservative Partido Popular with 31.5% and Pedro Sánchez’s Socialists with 34%.
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Publish date : 2024-11-21 02:33:00
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