Madrid: June 10,2008 – IRS/NYT – In the last two decades, Spain,Italy, Portugal and Greece have run at least 15 legalization programs of illegal immigrants. Spain made special efforts in this area three years ago, which is among the Continent’s largest.

Though they had opposition, Spain succeeded in legalizing nearly 600,000 of the African, Latin American and eastern European workers who helped power its economy and brought this once insular land the strengths and strains of diversity. 

Immigrants say their prized work cards have brought higher wages, peace of mind and reunions of separated families. But critics say legalizations have attracted more illegal migrants — with spillover risks to nearby countries — and warn that an economic slowdown now puts Spain and its foreigners at odds.

Among the beneficiaries of the legalization policy are Ignacio Cantos and Sandra Delgado, a husband and wife from Ecuador who left four children and an economic crisis in search of Spanish jobs. Legalization has raised their pay and ended their fear of the police, who once jailed Mr. Cantos for lacking work papers.

It has also ended their separation from their youngest child, Allan, a gap-toothed 8-year-old sent with his siblings to live with their grandparents when he was 3. Since arriving in Madrid in March, he has been twirling his mother’s earrings and stroking her hair as if worried that she is a mirage.

“I would never leave my children a second time,” said Ms. Delgado, 38, a nanny who has been raising others’ children while aching for her own. “I’m sorry I did it.”
With the United States riven by calls to legalize millions of illegal immigrants, Americans might consider the possible effects by looking at southern Europe, where illegal immigration   abounds and so have forgiveness plans.

The United States has an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants, a record number. Its last mass amnesty program, which began in 1987, legalized 2.7 million. President Bush proposed an immigration plan that would give some workers a path to legalization. But it died last year under assault from people who said it would lead to more illegal immigration.

Europe has held at least 20 legalizations in the past 25 years, giving residency papers to about four million people. Italy and Spain account for about two-thirds of the total, to the consternation of northern Europeans who see the south as the Continent’s weak back door.

With free movement across much of Europe, legalized immigrants can easily head north, alarming those worried about job competition, welfare costs, cultural clashes or terrorist threats.

Southern Europe’s tolerance for illegal immigration has several explanations. Its aging populations and booming economies created a need for foreign workers. Its proximity to northern Africa and Eastern Europe places it close to countries that supply them. And its economies have traditionally depended more on off-the-books workers.

No country has run more legalization programs than Spain, which has carried out six since 1985. As recently as a decade ago, immigrants made up less than 2 percent of the population. Now they are more than 10 percent. About 40 percent come from eastern and northern Europe; 38 percent come from Latin America; and 20 percent from Africa.

Despite the rapid change, until recently there was little political conflict, with legalizations occurring under both conservative and socialist governments. Spain even offers immigrants free health insurance, whether they are legal or not.

The attitude toward unauthorized migrants is much more relaxed than in the United States,” said Joaquín Arango, a sociologist at Complutense University in Madrid.
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