Church leaders uneasy about Spain plan to normalize immigrant status

Published: 2004-09-20

BARCELONA, Spain (CNS) -- Last winter, some of the small wooden boats that ferry illegal immigrants from Morocco across the Strait of Gibraltar were wrecked in storms. Dozens of bodies later washed onto the beaches of southern Spain. Responding to these grim events, Cardinal Carlos Amigo Vallejo of Seville described the gangs of human traffickers that operate from Moroccan ports as "unscrupulous men ... who give immigration such a tragic and disordered image." Yet the boats still come. On Sept. 17, more than 50 illegal immigrants were intercepted off the Andalusian coast. These days, this is barely news: Spaniards have become inured to images of the crowded, flimsy, open wooden boats used by the trafficking gangs. The Spanish government said in early September that it is determined to address the problem of trafficking and the plight of the so-called "invisible" immigrants, those who make it into Spain without permits and live in the limbo of the illegal economy. The government said it will do this by offering what it calls "selective normalization" -- granting permits to immigrants already in the country if they can prove they have a firm possibility of getting work.

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