[ECM]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')mmigrants now 8pc of Spanish population


February 10
Agencia EFE
(via Expatica.com)



MADRID - Spain's 3.5 million immigrants now represent 8 percent of the population, government figures reveal.

The rate of immigration to Spain continues to rise, with 450,000 moving to the country in 2004.

This compares with 2003, with 400,000 foreigners came to live in Spain, representing 7.2 percent of the population.

However, in 2000, immigrants made up only 2.3 percent of the Spanish population.

This increased in 2001 to 4.7 percent and then 6.2 percent in 2002.

Carmen Alcalde, president of the National Office of Statistics which released the figures, said there has not been such a steep rise in the immigration population in any other European country.

The figures were based on those who had arrived and registered an address with the local council.

Only 1.9m people have been granted legal residence, but there are thought to be almost a million others who do not have legal status.

Ecuadorians are the biggest section of immigrants, followed by Moroccans, then Colombians and Romanians.


There are thought to be at least 500,000 EU citizens living in Spain.



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AMERICANI ITE DOMUM

[lorenzo]

My data on Spain were way too conservative indeed.


Spain: The normalisation of immigrants in 2005

The Spanish government has established a three-month process of normalisation for illegal immigrants, from 7 February to 7 May. There are two differences in comparison with previous processes: the large number of illegal immigrants and the fact that the formal application for legalisation must be made by employers. The aim of the government is to bring the underground economy, which is growing as a result of immigration, to the surface.

On 1 January 2005, the National Statistics Institute (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, INE) placed the official number of immigrants in Spain at 3.5 million—equivalent to over 7% of the total population. Only Germany, Austria and Belgium have higher levels within the European Union. Furthermore, the phenomenon has grown at an extraordinary rate, bearing in mind that in 1999 the number of immigrants was 750,000, representing 1.9% of the population. Currently, if the figure is contrasted with the number of residents stated by the Ministry of the Interior, 1.5 million immigrants are illegal. Though there are thousands of illegal immigrants in the European Union and the number has increased in recent years, it does not seem that such a high level has been reached in any other country. In Spain, as in several countries of the Union (Portugal, Italy, Germany and Austria), immigration controls have been toughened since the beginning of this decade. Several contentious measures have been adopted, including setting annual quotas (sometimes through bilateral agreements with the countries of origin), stricter border controls and expulsion of immigrants 'without papers' . However, illegal immigrants are still entering the country. The government attributes this growth to two factors: the ease with which immigrants find jobs in the underground economy and the difficulty of expulsion of illegal immigrants under the previous law.