Spain accepts a large number of “legal” immigrants who are from other countries. This number is the largest one in the EU countries. In 2008, she accepted about 499,000 immigrants. Mainly, Spain accepts immigrants from three regions; Middle and South America, such as Ecuador or Columbia, Africa, such as Morocco, and Eastern Europe, for example, Romania. Of course, there are many “illegal” immigrants. She accepts about 354,000 illegal immigrants per year. Among them, illegal immigrants from Africa are often picked up and are criticized by Spanish media in terms of religion and social issues. However, there is a man who changed the policy on it. He is Jose Luis Zapatero, the current prime minister.

After Zapatero became the prime minister of Spain, in 2004, he started to change the way of treating illegal immigrants. In 2005, he decided the new policy on illegal immigrants. These are that Ⅰ. If someone who is an illegal immigrant stays in Spain more than 3 years and he or she has a job, Ⅱ. If he or she marries or cohabits with Spanish, Ⅲ. If he or she is a relative of legal immigrants, he or she can become legal immigrants. Why he changed the policy is that in Spain, declining birth rate has become a problem same as Japan. That caused the shortage of working people and possibility of collapsing of pension system; therefore, the government changed the policy on illegal immigrants to develop their economy and have them pay reserves of pension. By this policy, many of them could get a job and social security.

However, after the business became dull, many labours, of course including immigrants, lost their job. To create much employment for Spanish, the government notified to go back to their own to immigrants. The government had to change the policy again, besides direction for cracking down on them. Yet they do not want to go back their countries because though they go back there, there is little possibility of getting a job again. And now, Spanish economy gradually goes down, so it must become a strong problem to immigrants. In addition, the Prime Minister Zapatero, who promoted these changes about legal and illegal immigrants, does not run as a candidate for the next Premier Election. Therefore, there is a possibility that the policy would return to strict one for them.

by Naho Tamada