The recent agreement reached between the PSOE and Junts will allow Catalonia to manage residence permits or the returns of immigrants at the administrative level, but the Generalitat will always have to comply with state regulations. The proposition of the law with which the Central Government intends to delegate competences in the field of foreigners marks a clear limit: the Generalitat may not impose its own requirements for the granting of authorizations or return decisions, but its work will usually be limited to generally execute the national legislation of foreigners, that is, to process and resolve files.
In the press conference after the Council of Ministers, the Government has defended the agreement signed with Junts for the Delegation of Immigration Competencies and has denied that it is any assignment of the border control to the Mossos, as required by Carles Puigdemont. “Border control is not yielded. The Mossos will be present and will act in collaboration with the rest of the State Security Forces and Bodies. And that is a sign that the State works, ”defended the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations, Elma Saiz.
The president of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, has held the agreement reached as an “important step” on a press conference on a press conference to rebuild relations with the PSOE. “Everything that has to do with the life of a person who arrives in Catalonia will go through the Generalitat,” he defended. But will the scope of the pact come as far as the independence ensures? We review some keys to understand its impact, in case of getting ahead in Congress the proposal of the Law of Delegation of Competencies, against which we have already positioned Podemos and the Popular Party.
In general, what powers will they go to the Generalitat?
The Generalitat de Catalunya will assume a good part of the management and bureaucracy that until now exercised different state agencies, such as the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Migration. The departments of the Government will have work to deploy mossos in ports and airports, as well as on borders, as long as they exercise work related to immigration and not with state security.
But they must also put the structure to manage all residence permits and stays, both temporary and long -lasting, as well as in terms of work permits and in the management of circular migration programs. It will be the Catalan administration who must apply all state regulations in all these matters that, however, the Parliament of Catalonia cannot change. Another of the new plots that the Generalitat can manage will be the controversial internment centers for foreigners (CIE), specifically one of them, that of Barcelona, the only one that is located on Catalan soil.
What will happen to residence permits? Can the Generalitat change the requirements?
No. The Generalitat may not change the requirements of foreign citizens to request ordinary stay or residence permits, whether long or short. The government delegates only the bureaucratic part and its resolution, but always based on state criteria. The task that does happen to the Generalitat is the processing of the files, both of the initial requests of these permits, and of the extensions and resources.
The entire bureaucratic apparatus passes to regional officials, a work currently carried out by the foreigners. The margin that the Generalitat may have can be produced in those cases whose requirements are not clearly defined in the regulations and may be subjects of interpretation of each foreigner office, since there are currently different resolutions of similar cases according to the foreigner office where it is studied, although the powers are state.
For example, a foreign citizen who lives in Tarragona and wants to renew his residence permit will be attended by the Generalitat officials but the paperwork that must be presented to obtain it will be the same.
This applies to ordinary permits. Will the management of the extraordinary be delegated, that is, the way to regularize people without papers through roots?
No. The law proposal does not mention anything in relation to the management of temporary residence authorizations for extraordinary reasons, among which are the scarce roads used by people without papers to regularize, such as the request for residence by any of the different types of roots. Sources from the Ministry of Migration confirm to Eldiario.es that these types of permits are out of the pact reached between Junts and the PSOE.
What about foreigners?
The Generalitat will manage the CIE of Barcelona, the only one that currently exists in Catalonia. If the law will be released, the Catalan administration will be in charge of the management, coordination, management and inspection of this center, which currently depends on the Ministry of Interior. The designation of public employees will also compete from the Catalan government for both the security of the center, and for the health, social, legal, cultural and linguistic assistance services.
From Junts they defend that these places are currently “inhuman” and must be rethink, but the truth is that the agreement does not leave margin for a modification of their bases, since they will continue to be governed by the regulations approved by the PP in 2014, as in the rest of the State.
However, the regulation that regulates the conditions of the CIE has always been criticized by social movements for giving a lot of power to the directors of each of the centers, a position currently held by a member of the National Police. Therefore, the Generalitat can have room to include changes in the conditions of these centers, in what has to do with internal attention or protocols, but not in relation to the internment criteria of those who are locked in them.
What role will the Generalitat have in the return of immigrants?
The Generalitat, always based on state foreigner regulations, may manage all the returns of foreigners in situations that do not require the elaboration of a file. This is the case, for example, of those who have a prohibition of entry into our country and are slowed to the airport. In these faster procedures, technically called “return”, Catalunya may make the final decision on them.
However, in the cases where there are files, which are usually most returns, the Generalitat can only make a “resolution proposal” on the expulsion of these residents in Catalonia, so the final decision will continue in the hands of the Ministry of Interior.
Could there be an increase in returns from Catalonia?
The central government says that there should be no increase in returns from Catalonia with the delegation of powers since the legal basis will be the same. “The requirements do not change. Only changes who has to process the files, which must continue to respect those same requirements, ”reiterate ministerial sources.
Junts has insisted on the importance of the learning of the Catalan of foreigners residing in Catalonia. Does it include it?
The theme of the language was one of the great demands of Junts, although in the text of the proposition the theme has been practically missing. At present, both Catalan and Castilian are languages that can be taken into account when proving the roots to give residence permits, but it is not a requirement of mandatory compliance. It is, in the case of Spanish, to obtain Spanish nationality but the processing of citizenship is not contemplated in the agreement.
According to the text of the law, none of that will change. But Junts emphasizes that, while until now in practice, Catalan was not taken into account for residence, it should now be. “As now the Generalitat will be the one who has the last word, that should serve something. The population that comes must have the right and resources to learn Catalan, ”said Puigdemont.
In the law, the protection of Catalan culture and language in front of immigration includes as a objective?
In the articulate, no. But in the preamble, in a decaffeinated way, some brushstrokes of the toughest perspective on immigration that characterize Junts appear. The text indicates that immigration management in Catalonia must, in addition to providing rights and opportunities to foreign citizens, “protect the cohesion of the reception society, their language and culture.”
In the field of Catalonia, the text includes as a possible “effect” of immigration the alleged impact that immigration “represents for the Catalan language.” He points out that immigration management should be based on a “framework of rights and duties” that “must serve to protect them from the potential violation of their rights and provide them with more opportunities, as well as to protect the cohesion of the reception society, their language and its culture.”
At the general level, see in the arrival of foreigners an alleged impact “in the educational field, the health, that of social services, that of infrastructure, housing or the uses of public spaces.” Although it clarifies that immigration generates “public income derived from the income of the work of migrants, the increase in consumption and business benefits,” adds that “migration also increases the needs in these areas.”
Those “possible effects” can represent “a risk to coexistence and social cohesion.” According to the preamble, that supposed danger linked to immigration, “is sometimes fed by misinformation and bulos, which can take advantage of radical ideologies of different sign that seek to erode the values on which the peace, prosperity and freedom model that Europe has known after World War II has been founded.” Within that “radicalism” including to take into account “from xenophobia and racism to religious integrism and terrorism.”
If border control powers are exclusive to the State, could this agreement be unconstitutional?
The Popular Party considers that the agreement “violates the constitutional framework” and the party has announced that its legal services are working on it. “You cannot transfer a competition that is exclusive to the State,” said its general secretary, Cuca Gamarra.
For its part, the Government defends that the agreement is part of those provided with article 150.2 of the Constitution, which opens the door to the Delegation of Exclusive Competencies of the State, as is the case of immigration. Socialist sources of the negotiation explain that the red lines that supposed the demands of minums of Junts have not been exceeded, which insisted that the border control became “exclusive” of the Generalitat through the Mossos.
The government’s approach will actually change regarding immigration policy, supported by the foreigner law and in a European community framework sponsored, in addition, within the framework of the Schengen space. And that only the administrative body will vary in charge of enforcing the same regulations in force. “This implies more coordination, more collaboration and the assumption of a very important responsibility by the Generalitat, but does not change the rules,” they defend from the department of Elma Saiz.
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