This Tuesday, Congress will support the taking into consideration of the Popular Legislative Initiative (ILP) for the extraordinary regularization of the 500,000 migrants who, according to the calculations of the promoters, live in Spain without papers and without basic rights. The ILP has more than 600,000 signatures, as well as the support of 900 civil society organizations. At the moment, in the hours before the vote, both the Government groups – PSOE and Sumar – and their allies, ERC, Bildu, Podemos, BNG and PNV have announced their favorable vote, as well as Junts. Each one with its nuances and waiting for the amendment process.
Furthermore, the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, said at Cope: “We are sensitive to those who work in Spain and do not have papers.” That is, Feijóo has given hints that they will facilitate the consideration of the ILP, something that the PP spokesperson, Sofía Acedo, has confirmed in Congress.
Acedo began his speech in plenary by thanking the religious organizations participating in the ILP, such as Cáritas, for their role: “What has been intended is to bring the debate to the Chamber to put it on the political agenda. Our Group does not have sufficient elements of judgment, so opening the debate would allow us to portray the Government: to know the objective population in sudden irregularities and their reasons. There are as many cases as there are people and each one requires a specific action. We will take this into consideration to address this issue, as requested by Caritas and the employers. A balanced position is needed between legal limbo, border control and the expulsion of migrants with a return file.”
Only the extreme right of Vox has announced its vote against.
Once the Congress of Deputies takes the text into consideration this Tuesday – the vote is expected late in the afternoon – the norm continues with its parliamentary process in a commission where the groups are authorized to present amendments. The law then goes to the full Congress for a vote.
“The Socialists are going to vote this afternoon in favor of taking into consideration the ILP on the regulation of immigrants and later, in the parliamentary process, we will amend the proposal,” announced the socialist spokesperson, Patxi López, in a press conference. prior to the plenary session: “The first thing is to take it into consideration, because we are in no way going to disregard the will of almost 700,000 Spanish citizens who have mobilized, who have demonstrated for this issue. And the second thing is the amendments, because we want to confront this phenomenon of immigration in an intelligent and reasonable way.”
López added: “It is neither about an open bar nor about closing borders. It is about knowing that a country like ours needs and will need many thousands of immigrants, even to be able to sustain its own fabric, but it must be done in a reasonable and intelligent way.”
Gala Pin, spokesperson for Sumar, began her speech at the plenary session “demanding a ceasefire in Gaza, and an end to the genocide. Every day we should take advantage of any opportunity to ask for it.” Regarding the ILP, Pin said: “Today there is a victory for the nobodies. At a time when there is less and less belief in institutions, it is about letting citizens know that politics belongs to them. One day before the vote on the racist European immigration pact, today’s vote takes on greater symbolism. If this is approved here today, this is a mandate: the Government has to carry it out, and that is why we hope that tomorrow a group will be created with the ministries involved to make it happen. People do not migrate because they want to, but because we live in a capitalist system that forces this: European wealth comes from the plundering of the countries of Africa and Latin America. This colonial regime is seen in the immigration law, there is a historical debt that we settled in a very small part.”
Podemos spokesperson, Javier Sánchez Serna, said on the Congress platform: “We live in a world where capital moves freely and human beings only encounter barriers. They know that it is not possible for there to be no migrants, what they want is for them to have no rights. [mirando a la bancada de la derecha]. “They work without rights, they live in police harassment, and to fix all these injustices there is no other way than to overthrow Aznar’s Immigration Law.”
Jon Iñarritu, spokesperson for EH Bildu, recognized on the platform the efforts of the organizations that achieved more than half a million signatures for the ILP: “It is a matter of humanity, we must face it. From a pro-Human Rights majority we must proceed with this regularization. Furthermore, there are precedents in the EU and in Spain. It is a day of joy, but contained: the real celebration will be when it is approved, because there is a risk that this ILP will end up in a freezer for the rest of the legislature, and papers will be given to everyone.”
Mikel Legarda, spokesperson for the PNV, explained in his speech at the plenary session: “We consider that the initiative should be reoriented towards an extraordinary regularization on a case-by-case basis, eliminating precariousness, opaque or abusive contracts. We will vote in favor of taking the ILP into consideration, in recognition and respect of the work of all citizens who have worked for it, and to debate the substance that is proposed, but with the reorientation that we consider necessary, guaranteeing labor rights and reinforcing integration.”
Josep Maria Cervera Pinart, spokesperson for Junts, announced in the plenary session of Congress his favorable vote “without going into the substance of the initiative, out of respect for the 600,000 people who have endorsed it.” And he added: “We talk about people and human rights, because we have to look for ways and because in the process we will be able to introduce amendments, and because we are the ones who have grown most tired of claiming that in parliaments we can talk about everything.”
The ERC spokesperson, Jordi Salvador i Duch, for his part, has stated that the ILP should have “a total yes from the chamber. The ILP is the people’s way of legislating, so you just have to vote yes. If we are consistent with Human Rights, we cannot allow thousands of people in the worst conditions due to their administrative situation, they are class brothers. It is an unacceptable situation and in a State that is called a State of Law.”
What does the initiative ask for?
The Popular Legislative Initiative presented demands an extraordinary regularization of those who already live and work in Spain because “the criteria for access to residence are highly restrictive and very difficult to comply with,” and on the other hand, “the administrative procedure implemented is slow.” , bureaucratic and has a high margin of discretion when granting authorizations or their renewal.”
Lamine Sarr, spokesperson for the movement that brought the regularization of migrants to Congress, said in the ILP registration in Congress: “We have suffered all kinds of racism until we got here.” “For many people in an irregular situation it is impossible to get papers,” defended Sarr: “Among them there are families with children who cannot access health or education, they find themselves in a wheel of a perverse system that keeps them in the extreme. precariousness”. Sarr, a Senegalese, upon his arrival in Spain was forced to work as a mantero to survive, and recalled that among the nearly half a million people in an irregular situation there are day laborers, temporary sex workers and children who “having been born in Spain inherit the status immigration status of their parents.”
The text gives the Government six months to approve a royal decree with the procedure to regularize the administrative situation of foreigners who are in national territory before November 1, 2021. The promoters defend that, without its regularization, their rights are violated. fundamentals, they are prevented from contributing economically to society and the public services that citizens need cannot be planned or dimensioned.
The initiative remembers the work of migrant communities in an irregular situation during the pandemic in essential sectors such as care, home delivery or fruit and vegetable collection, when they paid “a very high price in the form of infections and deaths.” “Our society owes a debt of gratitude to one of its most vulnerable groups,” the text says.
The initiative began two years ago, when the ‘RegularizacionYa’ Movement, made up of migrants and anti-racist organizations from all over Spain, launched a large campaign to collect signatures.
The Constitution provides that citizens can bring their own legislative proposals to Congress by presenting 500,000 signatures. In February 2023, the Central Electoral Board confirmed that the initiative had obtained the half million necessary to begin its parliamentary processing. More than 700,000 have gathered.
Spain has the precedent of the regularization undertaken in 2004 by the socialist Government chaired by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
Source: www.eldiario.es
