Immigration as an Excuse for much more Security: The Case of Spain

Roberto Bergalli started his speech describing howSpain discovered only in recent times the real need for tackling the issue of migration. The first Spanish law dealing with the field of immigration was in fact published on July 1st 1985. The ‘Ley Orgánica de Derechos y Libertades de los Extranjeros’ (the Organic Law on Rights and Liberties of Foreigners) regulated some aspects of the social phenomenon of migration. Bergalli stressed how the Spanish word ‘extranjero’ is much more related to the English ‘extraneous’ rather than the word ‘migrant’ underlining the existence of an underground culture of differentiation, separation, when not even exclusion.

At the international level, social exclusion became a global event, hindering entire social groups rather than individuals, among which immigrants constitute a target group. Clandestinity, illegal immigration and organized criminality, accompanied by raising islamofobia in the aftermath of the tragic events of 9/11, exacerbate the existing linkage between security and immigration.

After these introductory remarks, Bergalli came to the Spanish perspective, highlighting how the Spanish legislation changed after the US and Spanish terrorist attacks, adopting around thirteen reforms of Criminal Law and Penitentiary Regulations, meanwhile rendering immigration laws tougher. These reformed legal instruments were the fruit of what he defines as an ‘emergency culture’, an exceptionalism that affects the need for urgent legal changing that edges the boundaries of the Rule of Law, sometime trespassing them when applied in concrete.

Thus, this emergency culture produced the strengthening of the law for foreigners, hardening their legal situation. Namely, people with a residence permit will be named regulars, while people without it will immediately fall in irregularity and being considered as clandestine and therefore criminals.

With the aim of supporting his thesis, Bergalli showed detention data for Catalonia, one of the most developed regions of Spain, bringing the attention on the fact that 32.4 % (2.625 elements out of a total 7.000) of the prison’s population is constituted by foreigners. Moreover, he explained how irregular foreigners are usually subject to an expulsion order, which authorizes the detention of the expelled ones in CIEs (Centro de Internamiento de Extranjeros) up to a maximum of 40 days. Judicial review is granted against the expulsion order, but normally administrative procedures took longer than the detention limit, proving to be concretely useless. Bergalli argued that this application of administrative procedures in the Spanish legal framework constitutes a severe violation of Human Rights in Spain. In conclusion, Bergalli reiterated how the fight against terrorism, especially against ETA, but also after the tragic attacks in Madrid on the 11th March 2004, added more stigmatization of the foreigners than before.

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