The process for the mass regularization of immigrants who already live and work in our country will have a reinforcement to speed up bureaucratic procedures, but it will not be police as requested by the representative unions. The Government has decided to enable the Ministry of Transport to lend a hand with the documentation that the hundreds of thousands of people who will be affected by the measure have to complete. This follows from the royal decree approved last Tuesday in the Council of Ministers and published yesterday in the Official State Gazette.
Both Tragsa, through Tragsatec, and Correos will be enabled to help in these tasks. According to the first additional provision, the staff of the first entity – framed within the SEPI – may carry out “administrative tasks of a strictly instrumental nature.” In no case will they have the capacity to evaluate the files for approval or rejection. The work will be limited to “material and technical support functions for the preparation of the procedures for its resolution.”
In the case of Correos, the BOE plans to use its “very extensive network of offices throughout the national territory” to guarantee “under equal conditions” that all interested parties can regulate their situation “regardless of where they live.” The staff of the public company will proceed with “support and management work in the procedure through the telematic presentation of the request for authorizations, and, where appropriate, the complementary contributions or corrections that may arise from it.” That is, they will make it easier for immigrants to fill out the paperwork without going to the Immigration offices of the National Police.
This decision to authorize two Transport entities is seen by police unions as confirmation that the Government expects an “avalanche” of applications in the coming weeks, according to the Unified Police Union (SUP). The last two days queues of hundreds of people could be seen at consulates of different countries, which will be in charge of providing certificates of absence of criminal offenses. This is one of the most important conditions that the Executive has established in the royal decree – the other is that foreigners have to prove that they resided in Spain before December 31 of last year – and the one that has generated the most controversy.
Initially, those affected had to prove that they did not have a criminal record punishable by a court. To do this, they had to submit a report from their country of origin attesting to this, but if they did not respond to the request, a “responsible declaration” from the interested party would suffice. A lax solution, since it would be based on the word of the person who would benefit, and which, for the Immigration experts consulted by this newspaper, could end up being a “straining ground” for criminals. After the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, this option was eliminated from the final text.
The commanders of the General Immigration Commission have shown their discomfort from the beginning of the regularization process. The agreement that the Government reached with Podemos in January did not have the vision of the experts, as this medium reported at the beginning of February. The first drafts did not contain reports from that police area, which is competent in the matter. The only document delivered was made by the “number two”, Commissioner Alfredo Miravete, and was kept in a drawer by the general director, Francisco Pardo, because it did not coincide with Moncloa’s political argument.
The Government defends that the measure will affect 500,000 people, but both that document and other experts multiply the number. Police calculations contemplate that between one million and one and a half million people will have the possibility of regularizing their papers in Spain thanks to family roots. Other sources believe that over time the figure may become double that.
In addition to the SUP, the main unions – Jupol, UFP and CEP – criticize that the extraordinary regularization of migrants is approved “with their backs turned” to security professionals with an “externalized” processing process that increases, they warn, the risks of fraud, errors or deficiencies in the identity and background verification of applicants. Regarding criminal records, remember that a person may not have a criminal record despite having been recently arrested, due to judicial deadlines since many procedures take months, or even years, to be resolved.