Be an immigrant in Spain. Spain, a doorway into Europe

Carlos Fraga Lorenzo
Spain - 26/09/2004
  Every year thousands of African immigrants die trying to cross illegally the Straits of Gibraltar, a place situated in the South of Spain, where the Atlantic Ocean links with the Mediterranean sea; it is one of the borders that those "undocumented/aliens" have to cross to get to Europe and their dream. The poverty and the general situation in their original countries push them to look for new goals, but do they finally accomplish their hopes? Do they get to have a new and better life? Are they accepted in the new society that is taking them over?

It is almost impossible to estimate how many immigrants have died trying to cross the Gibraltar corridor. The Association of Moroccan Immigrants in Spain said that the figure could be situated around 4.000 for the period of time since the early 90's. But in Spain the authorities have reduced this number by half, and the Ministry of Internal Affairs denies having any kind of information related to this subject.

A study made by the Human Rights Association from Andalucia calculates that in 2003 at least 236 persons died trying to cross to the Spanish coast. This is one of the highest annual numbers of dead people since 1997, when these kinds of studies started. Rafael Lara the coordinator of this Human Right Association said "it is possible that the number of dead immigrants in 2003 is around 400, because we cannot be sure how many immigrants are traveling in each boat, towards Spain."

To cross the Straits of Gibraltar is not easy. The main problem that most of the immigrants have encountered, is the abuse of the immigration mafias, that started trafficking migrants from Africa as a business in the 90's, especially in the North of Morocco, due to the short distance to Spanish Coasts.
With 1000 € the immigrants can buy a place in the boat that will take them to Spain. Many families save money over a long period of time to give their sons the chance to arrive to Europe. Some even get into huge debts that will be paying off for the rest of their lives. And to have paid or bought a place is not a guarantee for anything, because it is very possible that the Spanish police will arrest the immigrants once they arrive to the coast. That is if they are lucky enough to not die during the trip, because normally the boats are crowded, and these small ships are not equipped for long distance trips, loaded with overweight.

There are no big mafia organizations, only small ones; family businesses that before the 90 were dedicated to drugs traffic activities, said the Coast Police.

When they arrive to Spain or to Europe most of their hopes turns to deception. All is different from what they were expecting. After huge family debts, and the difficulties of the trip, their dreams are not accomplished. They will be running from the police, from one town to the other, be paid under the law if they finally get a job, or discriminated only for being an immigrant; to this can be added the fact that the integration into a new culture, customs and language will be not easy at all.

It is really difficult to fight against the harsh realities of immigration, in the face of the permanent increase in the number of immigrants that are going to Spain to settle there or to at least have a better chance to move to another European country. The studies and statistics made by the Secretary of Migration of the Trade Union Comisiones Obreras show that actually in Spain is almost 300.000 immigrants with work permission and almost 150.000 without any kind of paper 40% of them are Moroccans, 10% sub-Saharan and 5% Algerians. Nearly 30% are women. Most of them are not planning to stay in Spain. Normally the immigrants for interior areas of Morocco go to Italy and Germany, immigrants from Rabat go mainly to France and only those coming from the North of Morocco remain in Spain.

The law is not the only problem

With the Laws of Immigration that are currently regulating the situation, it is very difficult for immigrants to legalize their situation. To get a legal document is almost impossible. Amine Suitzi, responsible for the area of immigration in the Spanish trade union UGT, states: “There are a lot of obstacles to get the papers required by the law, because immigration legislation is really restrictive. Although they call it Law for the Rights and Social Inclusion of Immigrants, it is a paradox because the only thing that this law is doing is to cut and lock the basic rights of these people”.

Another problem to add to the situation of the immigrants is the difficulties in obtaining a job. This is very complicated for an immigrant to deal with, because even if they have good skills acquired in their countries, they are forced to accept jobs that most of the Spanish people refuse, such as construction, domestic service, and especially as land workers.

Amine Suitzi says that “there is a big number of immigrant women with a serious background, in their countries they were doctors, lawyers, and here they are forced to work as domestic cleaners because they are discriminated for their situation and origin and do not have any chance to work in their respective areas of knowledge.”

The domestic area is where most of the immigrant women from Morocco or South America are working in Spain. Most of them are underground workers without any kind of insurance, health care, and most of the time they are abused and exploited. They are also discriminated in salaries and employment conditions; some of the worst job conditions contracts are for Moroccan women.

On the other hand, immigrants also have a hard time getting a house or renting a flat, not everybody wants to rent a house to immigrants and when they finally get it maybe they will share it with more than one family or the conditions of the flat will be unacceptable, with no hot water, only two rooms, and of course high rent, because the owners sometimes take advantage of the desperate situation of the immigrants.
Suitzi says that “the government is doing very little for immigrants, there is an Immigration Law but no migration policy. In order to integrate the immigrants in the best conditions it is necessary that all the Ministries start to work together, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Work, because they need a job, they need an education for their children, a house and health assistance, and this is the responsibility of the government, they only are proposing reforms to the situation during the electoral period and after this all the promised measures are gone”

Xenophobia and social exclusion

In Spain, considered by many experts the main door into Europe, immigrants suffer from social exclusion. The places that have a high concentration of immigrants are the most problematic. Almeria for example, a place located in the south west of Spain, has a high number of Moroccans living there. They work mainly in agriculture; in this place the work of the immigrants plays an important role in the local economy, due to the fact that the locals do not want to work the land because the job conditions are hard and not well paid at all. Thanks to the hard work of the immigrants these villages have been growing in the last years and the rent has gone up too, but it is exactly in these areas where they are worst treated. They are working for the minimum salary, in hard conditions, over 45 degrees temperatures, longer hours than the ones stipulated by the Law, and sometimes the inhalation of chemical products used as fertilizers bring them illnesses such as chronic lung diseases. The houses that the owners of the lands are giving them are improper, they live in overcrowded habitation, without health conditions, in houses made of plastic or metal and that make it almost impossible to bring their families because the low salaries and hosting conditions are miserable.

In El Ejido town, also situated in Almeria, there have been some racism problems. In 2000 the situation got worst when a disabled Moroccan killed a young girl. This fact caused a spontaneous and immediate violent reaction from the townspeople.

As result, hundreds of Moroccans were killed, their business destroyed and their houses burned. But this situation is not isolated or related only with the concrete case of the murder of a teenager, this hatred toward the immigrants has been growing since the end of the 80’s, when the immigrants started to be contracted to work in the town. Sometimes the local politicians have pushed the hatred between the citizens to electoral and political purposes. As an example, it is enough to read the declarations made by the mayor and the chancellor of the City Hall of El Ejido to realize the kind of situation they have there; people were encouraged to revenge against the Moroccans in the village, who were accused of being thieves and criminals.

Amine Suitzi claims that in Spain exists a kind of Moroccan-phobia, in the street.

But there is not only direct and recognized racism; there is another kind of racism, more difficult to detect daily, the one of the people that are declaring themselves as not racist but are refusing to rent a flat, to give a job to a group of immigrants. Those that are protesting if an immigrant is waiting for the bus near them, or make some kind of comments such as “I am not a racist but all Moroccans are bastards”. This kind or racism is generalized and it is coming for misinformation, or political speeches that are accusing the immigrants that they are stealing jobs from Spanish workers when they accept jobs that have been refused by the nationals. Also there is a tendency to affirm that the delinquency is growing for the presence of immigrants, when statistics show that there is a low percent of delinquency among immigrants. “One person that has survived the calamities in their country and the trip, is not going to become a delinquent, they are coming here to work and to get a better life,” said Suitzi.

Lack of memory

Seems like nobody in Spain remembers that not such a long time ago we were a migrants’ country. At the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, a lot of Spanish people were immigrating to South America, due to the huge agriculture crisis in Spain, which made it really difficult to subsist only by working the land or being farmers. At the same time in this period the industrial towns were not able to take all the population that was coming from the agricultural areas to look for a better life. Later, between 1950-1970, a second wave of migrations started; this time the immigrants were going to other developed countries such as France or Germany, pushed by the shortage of jobs and the political restrictions during the Franco dictatorship.

It looks like the historical memory has been lost in this sense and nobody is able to understand the needs of those people that now are looking for the same kind of opportunities as Spanish people once were. It is important to keep in mind that the necessity of immigrants is reciprocal. Spain needs active population to work and the only possible solution to this problem is the entrance of immigrants into the country. The population has been getting old really quick, and actually Spain has a low birth rate. Thousands of statistics and sociological studies show that the long-term solution is to accept immigrants and integrate them into the job force of the country as a palliative for the worrying situation.

The same problem is affecting other countries from the European Union such as Germany, France, Italy and others.

Sooner or later the locals will have to understand that the arrival of immigrants to Europe is inevitable. Even with restrictive and hard laws, it will not be possible to stop the phenomenon of immigration, because it is a reality nowadays and it is growing.

Also it is necessary to keep or start building cordial relationships with the countries where the main number of immigrants is coming from. This measure will make the transit of immigrants easier and it will contribute to a decrease in human rights violations. Spain has become a country that receives immigrants, and soon it will have to open definitely the borders to these individuals that are looking for a better life, democratic values and decent life conditions, as well as a future for their sons. Perhaps one day they will thank Spain to have been the country that brings an impulse and the desire for living to a small part of the African continent.

Minorities & Social Exclusion | Spain | Reports