Immigration Laws: March, 2001 - Number #12

Spain. A new immigration law took effect January 23, 2001, stepping up penalties on employers who hire illegal workers, and making it easier for Spanish authorities to deport the estimated 500,000 unauthorized foreigners. In order to simplify deportation, Spain has made re-admission agreements with the major sending countries, including Morocco and Ecuador, and is negotiating such arrangements with Colombia and Poland.

About a million of Spain's 40 million residents are legal immigrants.

Under the new law and the readmission agreements, illegal foreigners from these countries apprehended in Spain are to be returned to their country of origin. In the case of the 150,000 unauthorized Ecuadorians, Spain has offered to pay the airfare home of the 4,426 whose applications for legalization were rejected in 2000. Few have signed up. When there are vacant jobs in Spain, a Spanish-Ecuadorian Committee will select Ecuadorians, who will receive a 30-day work contract with which the Spanish consulate will issue the visa. Once in Spain, legal Ecuadorian workers will enjoy the same benefits as other workers, but when their work permits expire, they will have to go to the Ecuadorian consulate if they want another job in Spain.

The 2001 revision of the 1999 immigration law was advocated by interior minister Jaime Mayor Oreja, who says that Spain can not assimilate the immigrants arriving from Latin America, North and sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe. Some 60,000 of the 224,959 foreigners who applied for legalization in 2000 and had their applications rejected. In answer to those who want another legalization, he says: "To give the same rights to both legal and illegal immigrants, that is something unthinkable."

The 2001 revision reduces immigrant rights-unauthorized workers are no longer permitted to join unions or strike. These new restrictions have led to protests by migrants and their supporters. Farmers have joined the critics, arguing that crops are left unharvested because they fear sanctions if they hire unauthorized workers, and that Spaniards reject farm-worker jobs.

The wife of the regional premier of Catalonia denounced Muslim immigrants, saying they wanted to impose their culture on the region. About two percent of Catalonian residents are foreigners; most work in Barcelona or on the flower farms in the north.

In 2000, about 150,000 North Africans were arrested entering Spain from Morocco, four times as many as in 1999.

Portugal. There are some 2.5 million Portuguese abroad, and 10 million in Portugal. Portugal has become a destination for immigrants, and there are now about 200,000 legal foreign residents there, up from 32,000 in 1974. Estimates of the number of foreigners illegally in Portugal range from 35,000 (official) to 200,000 in press accounts. Many of the unauthorized foreigners are employed in construction, and they live in makeshift housing near their work sites.

The unemployment rate fell to four percent in 2000 from 4.4 percent in 1999.

Portugal had legalization programs in 1992 and 1996, and the consensus is that they increased illegal immigration in the expectation of future amnesties. In an effort to obtain foreign labor but not permanent foreign residents, Portugal is negotiating guest worker programs with the Ukraine and Romania that will provide five-year work permits.

Many worry about the integration of first-wave 1970s immigrants from Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau, who tend to live in ghettos, with children who reject the menial jobs of their parents.

Italy. Italy will hold a general election in spring 2001, and polls put media magnate and former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who leads a center-right party, ahead of former Rome Mayor Francesco Rutelli, leader of a center-left party, by nearly 10 points.

Italian employers are complaining of labor shortages- they say that northern Italy has 100,000 to 160,000 vacant jobs, and that workers no longer arrive from southern Italy despite unemployment rates there of 20 to 25 percent. One reason for the labor shortage is that, in Italy, industrial workers earn only about as much as service workers, 1.8 million lire, the equivalent of about $857 a month.

During the 1960s and 1970s, an estimated 2.5 million residents living in the southern region of Italy migrated to the north. However, many government jobs have been created in the south, and transfer payments have been expanded, so that, even though the GDP per capita in the south is only 60 percent of that in the north, levels of consumption are about the same. Some economists note that Italians often identify strongly with one of the country's 22 states, and are reluctant to move.

About three percent of Italy's 57 million residents are immigrants, and they provide some of the missing mobility among Italians. Italy will issue 63,000 immigrant visas in 2001 to foreigners who have obtained regular employment.

Tom Hundley, "Cultural Attitudes Blamed For Italy's Labor Crisis," Chicago Tribune, February 23, 2001. "Protesters condemn immigration law," BBC, February 11, 2001. Jess Smee, "Spain defends embattled new immigration law," Reuters, February 12, 2001. "Unwelcome to Iberia," The Economist, February 8, 2001. Owen Bowcott, "New Spanish law angers immigrants," Manchester Guardian Weekly, February 7, 2001.