Tue, 9 February 2010
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Riot police remove demonstrating immigrants from Barcelona cathedral
I am walking through Raval, a poor area in Barcelona where many Asian immigrants live.
There is a group of children playing. But it is cricket, not football, which is the game; you might say the choice of sport is symbolic of how society is changing.
Sitting at the table next to me at a café in a well-heeled part of the same city is a group of labourers.
But they don't speak Spanish; only Russian. The sound is all-too-common.
And ask any foreigner who cleans their flat and the answer will inevitably be an Ecuadorian or a Colombian, who usually work illegally, cash-in-hand.
This is the new Spain where even outside the big cities, immigration is never far away.
When as many as 600 illegal immigrants stormed a cathedral and a church in Barcelona recently, demanding papers to give them legal residency, the issue was brought into sharper focus.
Many claimed to have been working for years and wanted the anachronistic immigration system to consider their cases more quickly.
They were forced out by riot police on the orders of the government.
*quote1*Prime minister Jose Lluis Rodriguez Zapatero was not about to accede to their demands for 'papers for all'.
But he has promised to reform the system setting up agreements with countries where many immigrants come from, traditionally South America and Africa.
Although British, German, American and other immigrants from the 'First World' do not face the same problems or obstacles, reforms could have a knock-on effect for them; they might, for example, benefit from a streamlined system to give them residence cards more quickly.
Whatever your nationality, if you are an immigrant in Spain today, you are forced to confront the reality that the country has a mixed relationship with its 2.6 million 'official' foreigners and perhaps another one million illegal immigrants.
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