Does Spain Have an Immigrant Integration Policy? Membership, Citizenship and Immigration Policy in Democracy
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UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA DE MADRID Facultad de Derecho Ciencia Política y Relaciones Internacionales Does Spain have an immigrant integration policy? Membership, Citizenship and Immigration Policy in Democracy Tesis Doctoral presentada por Beth Erin Jones Director: Angel Rivero Rodriguez ABRIL 2009 1 CONTENTS Introduction ................................................................................................ 3 Part One: A Political Theory Basis for the Citizen, Society and Immigrant Incorporation Models........................................................... 11 Citizenship and Immigrant Integration ..................................................................................12 Equality and Justice..................................................................................................................23 Membership and Rights ...........................................................................................................26 Citizenship vs. Residency..........................................................................................................32 Civil Society and Citizenship....................................................................................................36 Models of Incorporation and Different European Approaches............................................39 Combination of Civil Society Interaction and Models of Incorporation..............................46 Part Two: Germany ................................................................................. 55 Germany’s Historical Treatment of Citizenship ....................................................................57 German Naturalization Policy .................................................................................................68 German Judiciary and Political Parties ..................................................................................80 Welfare State and Immigrant Associations in Germany.......................................................88 Part Three: Examination of Spain’s Immigrant Integration Policy within a Liberal Model of Incorporation............................................... 93 Spanish Judiciary: How exactly are immigrants considered to be equal?.........................111 Autonomous Regions and Integration...................................................................................117 Collective Treatment of Immigrant Populations in Spain...................................................123 Interviews with Forum Participants......................................................................................140 Conclusions ............................................................................................. 178 Annex....................................................................................................... 189 Bibliography ........................................................................................... 230 2 Introduction 3 Historically, Spain has been a country of emigration, not immigration. Up until the early seventies Spaniards themselves were those that emigrated to other parts of the world, mainly to the Americas and other European destinations. Spanish Emigration declined from the early 70s almost directly in conjunction with 1973 oil crisis. In the early nineties, emigration from Spain became an almost non-existent practice through to the present time although there has been a slight but steady increase of about 200,000 Spanish emigrants since 2002 to 2008. Even so, the increase of immigration in Spain has been exponential since the year 2000. Coinciding with EU entry in 1986, immigration in Spain steadily increased, fueled by extreme economic growth and job creation in the 1990s and into the new millennium, right up until the recent world economic crisis. The greatest increase was noted between 2000 and 2007 where the increase in immigrants both legal and illegal reached approximately 10.4% of the total population while in 2000 it was only 2.3% of the total population. As a result of the turn from an emigration country to an immigration country in the recent decade or two, Spain has found itself in a position where its adjustment to such demographic change has become more than necessary, but indeed critical. Up until the mid nineties when government bodies were first formed to address the phenomenon, policy towards immigration in real or skeletal form was non- existent as there was truly no need for it. As time went by, the sheer numbers of immigrants entering the country through documented or undocumented channels forced the Spanish government to act in several ways: amnesty being one of them, as well as barriers to further immigration that was not based upon economic need, and a continued focus upon the idea of integrating those that have become perceived permanent members of the Spanish society as a whole. Integration being the popular and unclearly 4 defined term of the day, before setting out its intents and limits, several other terms should be brought forth first. First of all, the term immigrant should be defined as anyone who is residing outside his/her original national borders. Within such a wide category there other sub- categories: temporary residents (working or on extended holidays or retirement) with a finite idea as to the length of stay; residents that initially may think themselves to be temporary residents and then become permanent; and permanent residents that see themselves as settling in for the long-term. Unfortunately, the same type of residency card, or certificate in the case of EU members, is given out to all except in the case of immigrants involved in temporary work programs who may not have access to a normal residency card on a permanent basis because of the irregular stay involved in their work timetable. Generally though, those that are targeted for further integration into any society are those that wish to stay, without taking into account those from EU countries since they are allowed as EU residents to enter and leave as they please, with the exception the overlap of Romanian and Bulgarian citizens that have been stripped of the label of third-country residents (immigrant residents from countries outside the EU) to EU residents in 2007. Their entry into the EU may be recent, but their involvement in associations that have been actively part of the development of integration policy with the Spanish government in the last few years still makes them part of the immigrant population targeted by integration policies. So, with the exception of Romanians and Bulgarians, integration policy will be seen as directed to certain immigrants. Specifically, this is only part of the total immigrant population in the form of 30.5% from Latin America, 21% from Africa, (16% of that from Morocco), 6% from Asia, 2.9% from the rest of Europe, and also including the 15% from Romania and 3% from Bulgaria as of 2007. The other 21.6% of immigrants are either from the continent of 5 Australia labeled as Oceania, North America (not including Mexico), and along with the EU countries, are not the targets of integration policies for a number of possible reasons. This could be for several reasons: either because their numbers are insignificant; they are considered to be already part of the European family; have access to their own resources that allow themselves to reside in Spain; or they are just temporarily visiting or working inside Spanish borders with no need or want to truly integrate themselves on a long-term basis. Secondly, the term integration itself will be defined as the following, disregarding individual country approaches to the contrary. Essentially, it is comprised of the following points: one being the access to social benefits in the form of social security, medicine, unemployment, pension and education in the same venue and degree of any citizen; two being that the individual adapts to not just receiving benefits but to the responsibilities that come along with them such as paying one’s taxes; point three is access to extra aid and support in the form of allowing the individual to improve language skills, help if needed in employment insertion and open access to, and aid in, legal procedures etc.; fourth, an ability to move within the social web in an relatively equal manner constructed by free right to association and speech; leading us towards the fifth point of integration which is that of some sort of political involvement whether it be in the consultative sense or in the form of direct suffrage. Finally, all immigrants should have the possibility of applying for full membership in the form of naturalization procedures, if they choose to, once permanent residency has been established, while not being forced to completely assimilate if they do feel the need to. In tune with a multicultural standpoint, there is no reason why they may not continue cultural practices within their home life and even celebrate publicly as long as they do not go against any basic laws of the host society. Society must adapt along with the immigrant through 6 linguistic education and the upholding of all other laws that protect the rights and equality of its citizens. In other words, an approach towards a sense of equal treatment, along with extra help in gaining such treatment in the form of legal, education and employment services temporarily needed in order to breech the gap between an informed citizen and an immigrant not completely adjusted to his/her surroundings. In order to further set out the context