Just a few weeks before the amendment to the immigration regulations comes into effect, the Department of Social Rights has abolished the Social Mentoring Program for refugees and asylum seekers, which had been in operation since 2017. The stoppage, in principle, is temporary, and the Directorate General of Migration and Shelters justifies it by the need to take the "Use of people with international protection needs." However, the decision has been surprising within the sector. On the one hand, because there was a verbal commitment for it to continue. On the other, because it comes on the eve of May 20, when the Spanish government will tighten requirements for people awaiting a resolution to their asylum application.

Today we publish an editorial whose title would not have been understood years ago, at least not with the typographic vehemence with which we have written it:

They worked in the informal economy in sectors such as care or catering and when covid forced everything to stop they were left with nothing. Neither unemployment benefits nor aid from the furlough scheme. This vulnerability, which especially affected foreigners who had arrived in Catalonia recently, explains in large part why, despite the closing of borders and the fall in international mobility due to health restrictions, Barcelona's Immigrants, Emigrants and Refugees Assistance Service (Saier) has hardly noticed a decrease in activity in 2020. In total it attended 19,001 people. And that represents a drop of only 8% from the 20,620 it assisted the previous year.