The Government plans to make the renewal of residence and work permits for immigrants affected by DANA more flexible

The Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration plans to soon approve instructions in the Council of Ministers to make the granting of residence permits for foreigners affected by DANA more flexible, as announced The Country and elDiario.es has confirmed through ministerial sources. According to the Secretary of State for Migration, the measure will seek “not to aggravate the situation of vulnerability caused by the catastrophe and to prevent foreigners residing in the affected areas from finding themselves in a situation of unexpected irregularity.”

The order on which the Ministry of Migration is working aims to prevent immigrant citizens with papers from ending up in hiding because they cannot renew their residence and work permits due to circumstances related to the flood, such as the loss of their jobs. However, the department led by Elma Saiz refuses to give more details about how the measure will be applied. The same sources assure that the instructions will not be approved in the next Council of Ministers, but that they are “working to be able to specify measures as soon as possible.”

As published by El País, which has had access to the draft of the instruction, the Ministry will benefit foreigners who had their home or workplace in one of the municipalities affected by the storm between October 28 and November 4 2024. According to this information, authorizations that expire between July 30, 2024 and April 1, 2025 will be automatically extended until December 31 of next year.

The same media maintains that Migrations initially intended to expand the scope of the measure and approve a formula to extraordinary regularize immigrants without papers affected by DANA, given that these people are excluded from the aid approved by the Government. However, in principle this measure has not been included in the measure that the Executive intends to approve soon.

Oxfam Intermón estimates that between 28,000 and 41,000 migrants in an irregular situation were affected by DANA and are not eligible for state aid, which pushes them into a situation of extreme vulnerability. The NGO requests the approval of extraordinary measures to not leave these people behind, many of them domestic workers in charge of caring for the elderly residents of the affected areas or day laborers.