‘Country grows, we grow too’: 1 million migrants seek legal status in Spain
The government expected half a million people to apply. Nearly double that number came forward, in a process advocates say exposed how many migrants had
The government expected half a million people to apply. Nearly double that number came forward, in a process advocates say exposed how many migrants had been left undocumented for years in the country. Madrid, Spain – Badr Tmairi, 22, from Morocco, has spent six years living in Spain without legal status. He arrived at 16, alone, without his family. He held legal residency briefly after turning 18, but lost it when he failed to renew it in time. “What I want is to get my papers back so I can work as a hairdresser and travel to visit my family in Morocco,” he said. Tmairi is one of more than a million people who have now applied for regularisation under a new scheme that contrasts with a growing European trend against irregular immigration. He has been homeless for the past year. Without documents, finding work and decent housing in Spain is difficult. “It’s very encouraging to know that so many people submitted an application and are trying to regularise their situation, but that huge number is also proof that the state has failed in its duty to protect the most vulnerable,” Edith Espinola, president of the Active Domestic Workers’ Service Association (SEDOAC) and spokesperson for the Regularizacion Ya (Regularisation Now), told Al Jazeera. Regularizacion Ya, a collective made up of migrants, has led the push for regularisation since 2020. The measure grew out of a broad social consensus and has been backed by civil society organisations, the Catholic Church, trade unions and business associations.
Living without legal status, Espinola said, condemns people to social exclusion, as it has for Tmairi. Without rights or protection from abuse, they are unaligned with most of the rest of the population. The new initiative, Spain’s first regularisation process since 2005, began in April and closed on June 30. The government now has three months to resolve the vast majority of the applications submitted. Of the 1,174,978 applications, according to the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, only 11,000 have received a favourable resolution so far. About 608,000 have been accepted for processing, granting provisional residency and work permits until a final resolution. ‘All I want is to work’ Rocio Neciosupe, 54, is a Peruvian migrant who has spent two years without legal status in Spain. “Regularisation isn’t a handout; all I want is to work. To work without fear and with rights, so that if I fall and I’m sick, I don’t have to go to work that day and can still get paid, like anyone else,” she said. Neciosupe, a cleaner in private homes, is busy across six different buildings around Madrid. But she is currently recovering from a back injury sustained in a fall at work. Without documents or a contract, she has no right to sick leave. Unable to afford to lose her income while she recovers, her husband accompanies her to work each day and helps her with tasks she cannot manage alone. Rocio, her husband and their two daughters, aged 22 and 17, have all had their regularisation applications accepted for processing and are now awaiting a favourable resolution.
The BriefWire