The first days of regularization: "Volunteers pay for photocopies and bring their scanner from home"

BarcelonaThe balance of the first week of the regularization of the 150,000 migrants living and in many cases working in Catalonia is summarized in the 12-hour queues at the doors of town halls and social entities to obtain the vulnerability report and in the consequences of having had to improvise at the last minute to adapt to the final wording of the approved instruction. "They say we don't need the vulnerability report or the census, but I know people who then don't have their application accepted," states Elida Rojas, a Bolivian with two children to support.

Elida is waiting for her turn in a long line that stretches almost halfway down a block in the Eixample. "We don't want to miss the opportunity," she says by way of excuse. At the Monumental Citizen Attention Office or the one in Plaça Sant Miquel of Barcelona City Council, the situation is identical, as it is at SAIER, the municipal service for migrants and refugees.

In the La Florida neighborhood of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat, the two collaborating entities with this extraordinary process are also unable to cope with so many people who, in principle, were not expecting it. Mariló Fernández, from the La Fundició foundation, complains that both this entity and the neighborhood association responded to the Spanish government's call for social fabric to get involved to "help neighbors in the neighborhood who needed it with the paperwork," but that on the eve of the process starting, the government included the requirement of the vulnerability report.

"We didn't want to do reports and now we have done 2,000 for people who arrive at the premises desperate, seeking solutions from Iguala, Sant Vicenç dels Horts, Manresa... We can't take any more," complains the activist, who regrets "the little support" that social entities receive from town halls and the Generalitat.

In La Florida, Fernández assures that the premises have become too small and that ordinary activity has been affected, so they have reserved a space to try to maintain programs for resident families. The volunteers take turns, pay "800 euros for photocopies" out of their own pockets, or have brought a scanner or photocopier from home.

Shortened hours

At Àmbit Prevenció, an NGO in the Bordeta neighborhood of Barcelona, they have had to slow down because the first week they didn't stop and "friends, volunteers, and neighbors" were already exhausted, recounts the entity's president, Mercè Meroño. They are also attending to many people they didn't have on their radar, who are gathering at the doors in long queues, even at night. The entity has limited its hours to prepare vulnerability reports on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday mornings – without an appointment – to continue assisting regular users. For Meroño, the queues are a sign of the "degrading and inhumane treatment" towards migrants by institutions.

At this point, Victoria Columba, spokesperson for Regulización Ya, the movement that initiated the ILP with signature collection to make this process possible, is very critical. She denounces that, at this time, people have to queue at night to wait for their turn and that the Barcelona City Council and the Generalitat are not acting as they did with the arrival of 250,000 Ukrainians fleeing the war to obtain a special and express residence permit. "That process was done in an orderly manner, you didn't see Ukrainians crying in queues and everyone was attended to quickly in designated centers, like the one at the Fira," she recalls. In contrast, those who now wish to regularize their situation are finding nothing but contempt for their circumstances, which – she assures – serves to fuel xenophobic discourse and the far-right.

Although there have been criticisms for the lack of specificity in the Spanish government's instruction, for Columba "everything is clear" and that social services demanding the census or the vulnerability report are

The requirement of town councils to issue reports only to their residents makes the process difficult for those who cannot prove residency because they live in subletting, the owner refuses to register them, or they live on the street. In addition, some town councils do not register people without a fixed address.

The social services of the Tordera City Council have opted not to ask for census registration to facilitate regularization. Carlos Hidalgo is the head of the service, he points out that they also assist people from other municipalities and notes that the General Directorate of Migration of the Generalitat itself had problems resolving doubts about who signs the official documentation in the training courses it has given to municipal officials.

Hidalgo's complaint largely focuses on the fact that the Spanish government has not taken into account the experience and criteria of the College of Social Work of Catalonia, the professionals who are "on the front line." A colleague of his from another town council suggests that the teams have not been reinforced, already very strained by the management of other procedures.

The participation of entities in the process is non-profit, with the will to be able to lend a hand to the people they already serve. The Ministry of Inclusion has authorized dozens of associations to process all the required documentation through the Mercurio platform. The problem lies, on the one hand, in how the urgency has made them concentrate efforts on vulnerability reports and, on the other, in the inexperience of a large part of the associations, which have signed up with all good intentions and have had to organize themselves as best they can, agree the consulted professionals.

On a day-to-day basis, entities have encountered the fact that to use Mercurio, one had to have the digital certificate, but not that of the entity, but the personal one. "The volunteers have had to download the certificate onto our computers to be able to carry out the procedures," explains Meroño.