Seas wash up a dilemma in Spain

By Al Goodman, CNN Madrid Correspondent

MADRID, Spain -- Spain’s Mediterranean beaches are crammed with vacationers in August, especially visitors from northern Europe. But other less-welcome visitors, illegal immigrants from impoverished African countries, also try to reach these beaches, albeit in flimsy boats.

Spain will spend $100 million on stepped up police patrols, trying to put limits on a human tide of immigrants. As Spain has grown economically richer since joining the European Union in 1986, the flow of immigrants has also increased.

There are 400,000 immigrants, from Africa but also from Latin America and elsewhere in Europe, who have sufficient legal standing to be enrolled in Spain’s national health care plan.

The total is about one percent of Spain’s population, but the conservative government estimates 100,000 more are in Spain illegally. On August 4, the administration sent a bill to Parliament that would introduce tougher immigration laws.

“We want to be a country that warmly welcomes immigration, but we want to welcome them to a life with dignity,” Deputy Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy said.

But violence against immigrants flared in southern Spanish farming communities last February, where the migrant workers often do the most back-breaking work at the lowest wages, and some leaders say Spain is not properly tackling the tough issue of immigration.

“In the European Union, a good number of nations have had this problem for decades,” former Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez wrote in a newspaper column on August 7, apparently referring to France and Germany, which have far more immigrants than Spain.

But Gonzalez, a socialist who was Prime Minister for nearly 14 years, until he lost in 1996 to Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, added: “But other countries, like ours, are just starting to confront the problem. The initial results are not hopeful for us novices, with a dramatic paradox in our history.”

Gonzalez said the paradox was that Spain itself, formerly impoverished, used to send thousands of its own people to northern Europe and Latin America in search of better jobs, and as a result should have more understanding for the plight of immigrants now entering Spain.

The desperate journeys by the immigrants, who often pay hundreds of dollars to smugglers to help them make the treacherous crossing from Africa to Spain, make almost daily news in Spain. Many attempt the journey in August, when the waters are said to be somewhat calmer.

Tougher stance

Spanish newspapers reported on August 14 that police detained on the southern shores a total of 53 sub-Saharan Africans, 12 of whom required medical attention. The group included a pregnant woman who was taken to hospital.

Under the tougher immigration bill, all immigrants in Spain -- legal or illegal -- would have the right to medical attention. The bill also would provide education to all immigrants, even to illegals.

These rights were included in an immigration law approved in December 1999 by the leading opposition parties, when Prime Minister Aznar still had a minority government. But he won a second term last March, with an outright parliamentary majority, and promised a tougher stance against immigrants.

The administration’s bill, virtually assured of approval in Parliament, explicitly denies illegal immigrants the right to associate, demonstrate, join a union or go on strike, although legal immigrants could do so.

“This bill will permit an effective immigration policy because it distinguishes between legal and illegal immigrants,” Deputy Prime Minister Rajoy said at an August 4 news conference.

Declining population

Rajoy indicated Spain must tighten its policies because immigrants, once in Spain, can easily travel within those European Union nations that have relaxed their internal borders, while tightening security at their borders with third countries which are not EU nations.

But the increased police vigilance in Spain has netted mixed results, some leaders say. Nearly 7,000 immigrants have been caught this year trying to enter Spain illegally, 27 percent more than in all of last year.

In addition, authorities have expelled hundreds this year who did not have legal paperwork. Rajoy said there would not be mass deportations of the estimated 100,000 illegal immigrants in Spain, because each could appeal the denial of residency papers.

The immigration debate comes against the backdrop of statistics that predict Spain’s population could begin to decline in 2010 because the nation has the lowest birthrate in the European Union, with just 1.19 children per woman, down 60 percent since 1970.

Former Prime Minister Gonzalez and many others have argued that immigration is necessary for the economy and to maintain demographics in Spain. Reports say the shortage of workers is already being felt in the seasonal tourist industry near Valencia, Spain’s third largest city.

But in Spain, as in other parts of wealthy Western Europe, policymakers have yet to agree on just how many immigrants should be permitted to live alongside the native population.

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