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Going against the grain of regional ideology, Spain this week granted political amnesty to nearly 700,000 illegal immigrants living in the country. This is the latest in several blanket amnesties since 1990. During a three-month period in which illegal workers and their employers could file for the necessary papers, thousands of immigrants, from Latin America and around Europe came out from hiding, in Spain or other countries, to obtain legal residency. Spain considers the decision ? fueled in part by concerns over the exploitation of illegal migrants ? a victory. These individuals and their families have been removed from the black market economy where so many illegals find work, boosting the Spanish economy and previously sagging population growth. Spain has recently surpassed France as the adopted home of choice for immigrants coming to Europe. This newest wave of naturalized Spaniards shares a language and religion with its host country, but tensions still exist in the interactions between natives and immigrants. For many, Spain's stance on immigration is still welcome in a continent where closed borders have caused tensions in the past. ?YaleGlobal Spain Grants Amnesty to 700,000 Migrants Queues in scramble to meet deadline for acquiring official status Giles Tremlett The Guardian, 11 May 2005 Spain declared an amnesty yesterday for about 700,000 illegal immigrants, bucking a Europe-wide trend of cracking down on economic migrants, while striking at exploitation of those working secretly and fearfully in the black economy. The Socialist government claimed that a three-month qualification period which ended at the weekend - during which illegal workers and their employers could apply for residency and work permits - had attracted most of the country's illegal workers. "We can feel very satisfied," said the labour minister, Jesús Caldera. "Almost 700,000 jobs brought out of the black economy - that represents 80% to 90% of all such jobs held by immigrants in Spain." Officials said that, with workers' families included, more than a million people would no longer have to hide from police or labour inspectors. Long queues had built up outside government offices as the deadline for the amnesty drew near. Ecuadorians, Romanians, Moroccans and Colombians made up most of the applications. "If you get the papers, you go from being nobody to being somebody ... you exist," one Ecuadorian, Alvaro Salgado, 30, told Reuters news agency as he queued on Saturday. Critics said the amnesty had attracted a flood of extra immigrants, including many who had been living illegally in France, Germany and Italy. "There are now three times as many illegal immigrants as there were a year ago," said Ana Pastor, social affairs spokeswoman for the opposition conservative People's party. "Spain is considered an easy ride." The newspaper El Mundo said in an editorial: "On the horizon one can detect new avalanches of migrants - encouraged by this process - who could bring with them problems of crime and integration." Mr Caldera denied the claims, saying police figures showed that illegal immigration was on the wane. Spain, a country which still recalls the emigration experiences of millions of its own people, has seen a huge growth in immigration over the past five years as a booming economy has sought fresh, cheap labour. Spain recently overtook France as a host country for migrants after seeing numbers quadruple to 3.7 million people, or 8.4% of the population, since 2000. The sudden influx has, so far, caused relatively few problems and little heated political debate - possibly because many of the newcomers are from Latin America and share the same language and religion. Yesterday, however, government officials were still trying to calm tension in the Madrid neighbourhood of Villaverde, where a Spanish youth was stabbed to death by an immigrant 10 days ago. Migrants have turned round a population decline in Spain and have helped fuel consumer growth in the economy. Madrid has organised six immigration amnesties since 1990, several of them under the former People's party government. "They are justifiable because they are the only way to deal with situations that are humanely and socially unsustainable and which harm the economy," the pro-Socialist newspaper El País commented yesterday. Mr Caldera said the amnesty would lead to an increase in social security contributions of about €1.5 bn (£1bn) a year. Officials say the extra contributions will help offset a looming pensions crisis. Mr Caldera added, however, that there would be no more amnesties. He announced an immediate crackdown on black-market employers and newly arrived illegal workers. "We recommend that those who have not managed to legalise their situation return to their countries immediately," the secretary of state for immigration, Consuelo Rumí, told ABC newspaper yesterday. Supporters of the amnesty included trade unions and employers' associations. One building company manager, who handed in papers for a Romanian and a Brazilian, told El País that he was pleased to be taking his workers out of the black economy. "I'm very happy with them," he said. "I'll hire as many immigrants as possible ... they are punctual and do what they set out to do." Source: The Guardian Rights: © 2005 Guardian Newspapers Ltd.