Immigrant hunt in Murcia sparks fear of hard-line stance

[Ferran]

Immigrant hunt in Murcia sparks fear of hard-line stance

The small Murcian town of Torre Pacheco bore witness to a concerted crackdown on illegal immigration on Saturday.

30 June 2008

TORRE PACHECO - In an apparently stark shift in Spain's immigration policy, the small Murcian town of Torre Pacheco Saturday bore witness to a concerted crackdown on illegal immigration.

Sixty officers of the police's immigration unit blocked the town's main thoroughfare for over four hours in search of undocumented foreign nationals. Of 301 immigrants corralled into the town's three main squares, 58 were detained and served with expulsion orders. Of the detainees, nine already had such orders pending against them.

Kamal Rahmouni, president of the Association of Moroccan Workers in Spain (Atime), described the operation as "an immigrant hunt".

"They [the police] took anybody who looked Moroccan, or was black or Ecuadorian from the bars, the long-distance telephone centres and even from the mosque. They took them to the town squares and asked for their documentation."

The government has denied that the police entered the mosque and insists that officers acted within the confines of the law. Two translators accompanied police.

Atime has sought clarification from Interior Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba as to whether such swoops will become commonplace. At a meeting convened Saturday, Atime officials voiced concern that the event was an indication of a new hard-line approach to immigration. Many of those detained have asserted that they intend to report the officers involved.

"Like a bad movie"

"It is shameful for a county like Spain. It was like a bad Hollywood film," said Rahmouni. "They detained hundreds of people for several hours, without offering them food or water, in the middle of summer. There were pensioners among them, and one woman who had gone out to buy food for her children."

The raid met with the approval of some local residents, however. Several voiced their belief that it would help to reduce crime in the community. Four of those held are accused of identity theft, and five others had previously been deported - returning to Spain illegally before the imposed timeframe for doing so had elapsed. They will appear in court on Monday.

Torre Pacheco has a population of 29,000 inhabitants, of which 6,060 are immigrants, with the large majority - 3,000 - of Moroccan descent. Atime believes the real figure may be closer to 5,000.

[El Pais / Tono Calleja / Expatica]



Source: News Immigrant hunt in Murcia sparks fear of hard-line stance - News from Spain - Expatica

[orieleye]

Didn't Zapatero give an amnesty for 1m illegal immigrants not so long ago?

[Ferran]

Originally Posted by orieleye

Didn't Zapatero give an amnesty for 1m illegal immigrants not so long ago?

700.000 more or less, yes. But the major of this Murcian village belongs to the Popular Party (the Liberal-"Convervatives"), thus Zapatero has not much to say there. In any case, the regional Delegation of Government had already asked for excuses, defining the act as "disproportionate and excessive" and saying that in case of knowing what would happen beforehand they would have unauthorized it.

[Menydh]

Originally Posted by orieleye

Didn't Zapatero give an amnesty for 1m illegal immigrants not so long ago?

So? The amnesty left an empty place for another 1 million and above.

The problem is that now there has been an increase of foreign population of up to 5 million (according to official figures, nearer to 7 million according to other figures [for the Spanish, buy or subscribe to the newspaper Identidad and follow the articles by Ernesto Milà]) in a record time of less than a decade and during a boom in the construction sector artificially extended with the immigrants, where it was easy to get a job.

Not we are on a period of crisis, a part of which is seen but another part is submerged, with a government that has done nothing to forsee its effects and that knows not what to do anyway. And with an unemployment index the highest of all OCDE countries. And rising.

We have some very interesting years coming ahead.

Originally Posted by Ferran

700.000 more or less, yes. But the major of this Murcian village belongs to the Popular Party (the Liberal-"Convervatives"), thus Zapatero has not much to say there.

The sooner that people realize that there is no such "Conservatives" (with or without quotes), the better.

AP thrived with M. Fraga on the votes of the Conservative public. Then turned into PP and in their long quest for the "center", they cornered the Social Conservative within the party, to the point of marginalizing them. And now they are ostracizing them.

I bet that they've used sessions of hypnotism because I've seen life-time Ultra-Conservatives repeating with much conviction that they are Liberals.

[Ferran]

Originally Posted by Menydh

The sooner that people realize that there is no such "Conservatives" (with or without quotes), the better.

Well, I'm of the kind that believes there's no much difference between the two main parties, the only notorious one being the visible leadership in perverting this country, as it is the socialist party the one always having the initiative to propose the modern laws, to which the "liberal conservatives" would initally oppose, but once it's approved and shown to be "popular" enough they would no longer put any effort in critizing it (and as it happened several times, later they would even publically praise it). Thus, they are what they define themselves as, liberals happy with the current (dis)order, who don't care in re-washing their program every month as long as it serves to keep themselves on the forefront of popularity. Nothing to do with the Conservatives of the time when there was something worth conserving, actually.

[Carnyx]

The PP is a well known Fascist party once led by an ignominious character bearing a mustache, mustache that reminds of the darkest periods of our history.