RIGHTS-SPAIN: Immigrants Face Death, ‘Mafias’, Legal Reforms

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Alicia Fraerman

MADRID, May 12 2000 (IPS) - Even if they save the money to pay smuggling rings that transport immigrants and survive the dangerous journey to Spain, undocumented foreign nationals are facing the determination of the centre-right government of José María Aznar to stiffen the Law on Aliens.

On Friday, a flimsy boat packed with undocumented immigrants from North Africa capsized off the Spanish coast. Six men and women drowned, seven are missing, 16 were detained and an undetermined number made it past police controls into Spain.

Reports of similar incidents have become routine in the country known as the “southern gate” of Europe.

The government classifies foreign nationals who make it into Spain without entry visas or cross the border at unauthorised spots as “illegal” immigrants, while human rights groups and other non-governmental organisations (NGOs) consider them “irregular” immigrants whose situation could be legalised.

Undocumented immigrants who had spent at least one uninterrupted year in Spain by Jun 1, 1999 are currently able to regularise their situation under the Law on Aliens, which was amended last December despite the opposition of parliamentarians of the centre-right governing People’s Party (PP).

Local authorities are not concerned about those presently normalising their situation, nor about migrant workers authorised to stay in Spain for the harvest season, who number no more than 40,000 a year.

But according to the Law on Aliens, anyone entering the country without a visa can be immediately deported if they come from outside the European Union or from countries with which Spain has no bilateral accord waiving the need for visas.

All Africans need a visa to enter Spain. Most undocumented immigrants come from that continent, a majority of them transported by trafficking syndicates that profit from their desperation to make it into Europe in search of a job and decent living standards.

Two frequent routes taken by emigrants are from northern Morocco to the Mediterranean coast of the southern Spanish region of Andalusia, or to the Canary Islands, located in the Atlantic ocean off the northwest coast of Africa.

The fee charged by traffickers varies according to the point of departure. Emigrants who brave the shortest but hazardous journey, from northern Morocco, pay around 1,000 dollars, while those who set out from Pakistan in Asia or Latin American countries like Brazil are charged at least three times that.

Most undocumented immigrants are unaware of what awaits them in Spain, and many have been deliberately misled.

Mustafa el Marabet, spokesman for the Association of Immigrant Moroccan Workers in Spain (ATIME), said the mafias that smuggle undocumented workers deceive them into believing that they will automatically receive documents once they reach Spain.

The police dismantled 244 bands involved in trafficking undocumented immigrants in 1999, 78 percent up from the year before.

Prime Minister Aznar said that as amended last year, the Law on Aliens generates a “summons effect,” encouraging people to attempt to enter Spain without visas.

But social organisations disagree. The ‘Confederación Sindical de Comisiones Obreras’ (CCOO) trade union confederation said the government oversimplified the problem when it argued that a stiffening of border controls and deportation procedures was the solution.

The CCOO said the government’s approach of tighter controls was the same one applied since 1985 when the original Law on Aliens was passed, before the modifications approved last year.

The trade union said that approach had only “fomented the growth of the ‘mafias’ and increased the number of deaths, while facilitating the exploitation of immigrant workers and condemning a large part of that social group to clandestinity and social exclusion.”

El Marabet said the inflow of undocumented immigrants would continue, independently of whether or not the Law on Aliens was amended once again. He rebutted claims that the law as it now stood had fuelled immigration.

Remarks on the supposed “summons effect” of the law are only designed to “confuse the public and justify modifications” designed to stiffen the law, he maintained.

First deputy prime minister Mariano Rajoy said Thursday that the government aimed to overhaul the Law on Aliens “as soon as possible.”

But while the PP’s parliamentary majority would allow it to push through the reforms without the need for support from other parties, Rajoy sought to ward off criticism by the opposition, NGOs and trade unions by announcing that the PP would seek a consensus with other parties.

He criticised the current law and said the problem of immigration would be the most pressing concern facing Spain and the entire European Union over the next few years.