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Immigration, both legal and illegal, has somehow become a point of discord among European society and, therefore, within the Community legislature. The issue is certainly not a minor matter for European citizens, who are impacted by the influx of citizens outside the Union.
There are different positions in this regard in different social spheres. Some advocate the outright condemnation of closed-border attitudes, others move between indifference and ignorance. Others even defend the well-known and problematic open-door policy.
This last point is the one that seems to have been taken as an issue by the recently elected President of the Government of Catalonia, an autonomous community in Northeastern Spain which.
With President Salvador Illa (Spain’s former Health Minister), Catalonia has gone from being under a long period of pro-independence government, to form a Socialist government, although, yes, with a strong Catalan identity.
At the opening ceremony of the headquarters of the Escola de Noves Oportunitats de la Garrotxa, in the Catalan city of Girona, Illa said that the Catalan citizenship ought to be extensible to other citizens.
According to the regional presents, public administrations must commit to “welcome and integrate” migrants in Catalonia, as well as provide them with the necessary tools to make it possible.
Illa was joined the regional Minister of Education and Vocational Training, Esther Niubó.
In addition, the president, in a willful display of ignorance of the reality that his country and many others in the Union are living, stressed that immigration not only does not jeopardize the identity of their communities, but enriches it.
This discourse seems to neglect the dire immigration crisis that both Spain and Mediterranean countries are currently facing since 2015, where more than one million immigrants and refugees arrived in Europe.
This influx has generated a situation of great pressure for the leaders of the Union and, making migration policy an issue of great public interest, but with little to no long-term solutions.
Indeed, Spain is suffering an unprecedented migratory crisis.
For months, the regional government of the Canary Islands, which is an Spanish autonomous communities, has been asking both the national government and other EU Member States for help to cope with the wave of minor migrants who, moreover, cannot be deported.
This issue has been making the front pages of national newspapers, parliamentary questions in all Spanish and European legislative chambers, and urgent requests for the appearance of the competent authorities and, therefore, those responsible for its management.
Salvador Illa’s position is, however, interesting.
The Catalan launches these affirmations and recommendations, only three months after the previous Government of Catalonia refused to an equitable distribution of minor immigrants in all the Spanish territory, i.e when the Canary Islands, Extremadura, Galicia or other communities accepted the agreement of the Spanish Government to distribute the immigrants among all the autonomous communities, Catalonia refused.
It is certainly irresponsible for public officials to promote the sort of illegal migration, when the values and culture illegal migrants bring are making European cities and towns more insecure.
It is irresponsible too, to make statements advocating open-door policies when nearby examples, like France’s, demonstrate the dire consequences of having allowed a massive influx of immigrants from cultures and values completely different from those that cemented the freedom and equality that represented the European Union.
It is precisely because European society still wants freedom and equality to continue to reign in its streets, neighborhoods, cities and countries that there must be stricter policies to regulate the flow of migrants.
That does not entail doing away with immigration altogether, but to have a controlled and legal influx.
It does entail having less irresponsible discourses that promote illegal crossings into our European soil, with many of these migrants putting their very lives at risk.