In the European elections in June, the migration issue will occupy an excessive place in the electoral campaigns, which does not correspond to its real impact on the daily life of the vast majority of the population. Its negative consequences, even if they were true – which they are not – would be far removed from the importance of issues such as growing inequality and the existence of poor workers, the fair energy transition or the lack of housing.
Therefore, it is timely to talk about the issue to avoid gratuitous concerns and suffering, both for the immigrant population and for the citizens of the host countries. In recent years, suspicions, xenophobia and far-right parties have increased in Europe. This defensive attitude is the result of the recent community pact on migration and asylum, whose main merit is that it exists, which homogenizes the conditions of asylum and establishes a modest system of flexible mandatory solidarity. Its content, unfortunately, is far from what its ambitious statement would suggest.
In this context, what is the situation in our country? What the surveys indicate is that immigration does not appear among the citizens' first concerns. In fact, there is a widespread opinion that, in Spain, the phenomenon is managed “better” than in most of its European partners. What accounts for this difference? Firstly, to historical and cultural reasons, to our relationship with the other, with the stranger, which give rise to a certain anthropological egalitarianism, and to singularities of Spanish colonialism such as the Legislation of the Indies, the preachings of Bartolomé de las Casas or the reductions Jesuits in Paraguay.
Other singularities closer in time, unique in Europe, would be the registry of inhabitants and regularization by roots. Registration is mandatory, for the City Council and for the citizen themselves, regardless of their situation. This allows the City Council to know what its population is; the citizen, even if he is an irregular immigrant, access basic benefits, especially health and education. In this way, current norms are respected (in particular, the Convention on the Rights of the Child) and immigrants are provided with a first recognition of their status as neighbors (not voters).
For its part, regularization by roots, the result of an amendment that Convergència i Unió introduced in the Immigration Law of 2000, allows a continued flow of obtaining work and residence permits by people with three years of stay, without incidents. , in the country.
Although there is still work to be done, other factors have contributed to a greater degree of inclusion of the foreign population: from the attitude of the churches, which have encouraged reception and interreligious dialogue, to the actions of the unions, which before 2000 already They had created information and support organizations for immigrants, also unique in Europe, through identification with football clubs such as Barça or Atlético de Madrid. And above all, because in Spain they began to legislate on reception, integration, citizenship – Andalusia, Catalonia, central government – with greater diligence than in any other European territory when the migration phenomenon began to emerge in their countries.
We should add the daily work of multiple entities and people who contribute to transmitting respect and building social cohesion. And two last relevant facts: the first, that we have been assuming, particularly by the local administration, the intercultural method of immigration management, based on equal rights and duties, respect for diversity and positive interaction . The second piece of information, with an expiration date, is that there are still Spaniards who have experienced some migratory process and who have a special capacity to empathize with new neighbors, whose experiences are often astonishingly coincident.
Assuming that, indeed, our country is fortunate enough to manage immigration better, what is the response of the immigrant population? In general, the predominant type of relationship is coexistence, ahead of cohabitation and clearly above hostility, while reasonably far from conflict, which remains contained. Likewise, feelings of belonging to the host society are identified, compatible with the identities of origin and growing depending on proximity (neighborhood, municipality, autonomous community...).
An interesting indicator of social inclusion is that the percentage of organ donations from immigrants consistently exceeds 10%, another singularity on a European scale, despite the cultural and religious differences that accompany the experience of death, which do not prevent a behavior analogous to that of the native population.
To conclude, a sociological observation: unlike what happened in other European countries, the celebration of the soccer World Cups did not produce conflictive situations in Spain (even if there were some minority attempts to provoke them). In any case, experience shows that, to build social cohesion, it is not enough to legislate (France, for example, has just approved Immigration law number 30 since 1980). The most important thing is to encourage mutual respect, recognition and full equality of rights and obligations.
