More than 30,000 minors live without papers in Catalonia.

BarcelonaAs she enters adolescence, Amina S. dreams of being able to enter the academy and earn a place in the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) or the Local Police. Before that, however, she will have to obtain her papers and even acquire Spanish nationality. For now, at 17, after four years in Catalonia, she is waiting for her case to be resolved, once her father has regularized his status and can begin the process of obtaining family roots for his two children, while her mother must follow a separate procedure. "Not having papers makes you feel different, because you so often feel like there's an invasion of illegal immigrants!" says this young woman, who only thinks "about the future" and has never been able to return to her country of origin, not even when a grandmother died. "We wouldn't have been able to go back," she notes.

Roxanna Redon is also familiar with this situation of instability and vulnerability, having landed in Catalonia when she was 14, following her mother from Colombia. She was able to regularize her administrative status through family ties. In these cases, the law requires parents to prove they have been residing in the state for at least two years, have the financial means to support their children, and have decent housing. For six years, she was an undocumented child and remembers that period as "difficult years" because, "undocumented" as she was in the eyes of the police, she limited her outings out of "fear" of being arrested for any reason. At home, her mother explained to her what it meant to not have documentation, so she was aware of the "risks" she ran from day one.

Although all children enjoy special protection simply for being children, the truth is that thousands of minors grow up in an irregular situation, even if they were born in Spanish territory. Therefore, their fundamental rights are limited, notes Ona Lorda, head of children's policies at the NGO Save the Children. This entity prepared a report with the Fundación por Causa that examined the situation of these children, and the lawyer states that this group suffers a triple impact: for being minors, for being migrants, and for being in an irregular administrative situation.

One in five children

How many undocumented children are there? There is no official figure, only estimates. The 2021 NGO report indicated 34,000 minors in Catalonia, a quarter of the 147,000 in the entire country. This figure represents a fifth of non-EU nationals in that age group. When asked about this, the Department of Education does not have this data because it claims that all students are treated equally. In fact, teachers consulted confirm that they are not provided with this information and that they often find out through a comment from the family or because a student suddenly cannot participate in an activity. The only data provided by the Department of Social Rights and Inclusion is 29,000 children under 15, always based on the census. However, even if they are not counted, minors exist and are part of society. The problem is that if a situation is not quantified, it becomes difficult to make its effects visible.

The fate of these children is closely linked to that of their parents, because the administrative status of minors from non-EU countries is the same as that of their parents: if the parents lack a residence permit, their children will not have one either. This situation is repeated even for those born in Spain to parents in an irregular situation, because the children inherit the nationality and administrative status (the residence permit). Unlike in the United States, the law governs by blood (blood vessels) and not the right by territory (ius solis), illustrates the lawyer of the IACTA cooperative Francisca Pérez.

Rights linked to the census

The vast majority of these minors in an irregular situation have access to a place in compulsory education and health services. However, according to Lorda, the fact that these are rights linked to the municipal register leads to "arbitrariness" that can exclude the child from these rights simply because they are unable to qualify for scholarships or do internships once they reach secondary or higher education.

This happened to Redon, who suddenly had to abandon an internship for a vocational training degree due to the entry into force of the Internship Statute, which requires companies to pay contributions for interns. "As I didn't have a NIE, they couldn't register me with Social Security," she explains. She wasn't able to resume her internship until a year later, once she was able to regularize her situation due to family ties when she was 18 (although the procedure began when she was a minor). Back then, she only had a residence permit, and it wasn't until a few months ago that she added a work permit thanks to a pre-contract that Suara made her within a Lánzate de Intermedia program, for training and job integration aimed at vulnerable young people.

Sofía arrived in Catalonia with her mother four years ago, where her father had already been living illegally for two years. During this time, neither parent has been able to secure a job offer to begin the process of obtaining a residence permit, so they must survive in the informal labor market. They also cannot rent a home and are subletting a room after having lived in an apartment for a while. "You consider returning to Colombia, because even though there is work, no one wants to do the paperwork for you," laments her mother, Carolina Urbano, who points out the rejections she has received from employers who have refused to hire her so they wouldn't have to wait for all the paperwork to be completed.

In fact, if they don't leave—she points out—it's for the daughter, who is in school and undergoing treatment in the public health system for a degenerative disease that affects her hearing and sight and could leave her blind. They have attempted to regularize Sofía's status by invoking the criteria of exceptional circumstances for humanitarian reasons and have received a negative response from the Government Subdelegation, which justifies the decision on the grounds that she could be treated in Colombia. However, the family argues that the financial burden of a hospital exceeds its capacity. They have been awaiting the appeal filed since October. Although they have access to healthcare, the mother complains that they cannot use the ambulance service to take her to the hospital if she suffers a seizure, nor can they access assistance for visual impairments because the girl does not have a NIE (National Identity Number), the residence number for non-EU citizens.

From Save the Children, Lorda points out that the administrative irregularity has a clear consequence: a high rate of poverty that, logically, impacts children. These children have fewer opportunities for their development and when it comes to carrying out activities because they cannot access official benefits such as the minimum living income or the guaranteed income for citizens. For Sofía, like the other children, a trip abroad is a negative experience because she risks being detained for not having a residence permit. It's impossible to see her family again in her home country, not even for a cause as humane as death or a family celebration. The immigration law is "an inhumane law," the lawyer points out, because it forces people in an irregular situation "to go unnoticed, to be almost invisible."

The difficulty in obtaining a job contract or renting a secure home hinders parents' regularization and, therefore, is also an obstacle for minor children (or adults with disabilities) to obtain papers. Therefore, both Lorda and Pérez agree in highlighting the difficulties these children face when they reach 18 without a residence permit because the supposed protection for children lapses, and they must establish residence under the general regime for adults. "There are people who have lived here for 15 years and have not regularized their situation or that of their children," says the lawyer, who lists cases that are incomprehensible to family logic, with minor children granted asylum but not their parents, who automatically receive an expulsion order.