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The #RegularizaciónYa movement started this weekend in Valencia, as well as in 30 other Spanish cities, a campaign to collect 500.000 signatures that allow the regularization of the administrative situation of 500,000 migrants, through a Popular Legislative Initiative (ILP) with which they claim their 'right to have rights'. To find out more about their demands, we spoke with Dolores Jacinto, spokesperson for the movement.
It is strange that to this day, someone does not know what the Regularization Now movement is. However, for those people who do not know exactly its origin and raison d'être. What is it and how was the Regularization Now movement born?
We were born as a movement in April 2020 as a result of the pandemic, of the confinements. In those months, many measures were taken for entrepreneurs, businessmen... but they were aids that did not reach people in an irregular administrative situation and who had no way to sustain their lives. Then, we began to demand from the Government that all the social measures that were in place should also reach migrants, and for this purpose, an extraordinary regularization. Because the migrants in that situation, at that time, experienced an extreme violation of their rights.
We are a group of people working in different territories of Spain. We are domestic workers, sex workers, psychologists, political scientists, activists within other organizations... and we see an urgent need to give protection to all these people and we started working to present a PNL (Proposición No de Ley) to Congress, a proposition that was rejected in 2020. We managed to get the alliance of eight political parties, which joined together to support this initiative, but it was rejected by PSOE, PP, Ciudadanos, PNV and Vox.
We had hoped that it could be done, since Spain has regularized extraordinarily on up to six occasions in its democratic history. And we were complying with Article 31.13 of the Law on Foreigners, which states that people can be regularized if there is an urgent reason, and in this case there was, the pandemic context.
In 2020, this initiative was rejected, but are you aware that you were a milestone in the anti-racist movement in Spain?
I don't think we are yet. We are taking steps out of conviction, rather than to make a difference because we believe it is a matter of justice for people who are not entitled to have rights, not even to be called people.
We know that we are taking important steps as migrants, and also in alliance with other organizations without which we would not be able to advance, but it is the migrants who are leading the movement.
The movement calls for the extraordinary regularization of 500,000 people who currently do not have a dignified life. How would you explain to a person who may not have all the information what it means to live in an irregular administrative situation?
From my own experience, I can tell you that being irregularly shaped for you to understand is complicated. Not impossible, but complicated. We are now appealing to say that we are not strangers, that we have been living in Spain for many years. We are people who are known by the community, in the workplace, in the supermarket... we live together, we are neighbors, but we do not have the same status as citizens. And from here, we try to encourage empathy in the rest of the citizenship with our situation.
In addition, I recall that the irregular situation also affects minors, because the irregularity is inherited by children. It is more difficult for them to have access to school canteens, to continue studying once they finish ESO... and they are labeled in different ways. Therefore, we resort to generating empathy. You have also been migrants, you have been exiled and your arms and doors have been opened to you. Now we want support for this initiative so that it reaches Congress and is debated.
From the Regularization Now movement you also emphasize that this regularization is not only beneficial for the migrant collective, it is beneficial for all the Spanish citizenship of which you are part even if you are not recognized.
I myself have been living in Spanish territory for eleven years and to date I do not have a DNI. I still have a NIE and I am obliged to make a contribution to Social Security in order to maintain my regular status.
When we speak in economic terms, regularization would be great for the state because all those contributions that are not recognized today would be recognized. People who continue to work in the underground economy, but not because they want to, but because there is a Foreigners' Regulation that allows it. It's not that people don't want to pay direct taxes, it's that they can't afford to.
What was the process that led to the Popular Legislative Initiative? What have been the main obstacles to get to where you are now?
We started at the end of the summer of 2021, in contact with the A More Just World party, which proposed this initiative to us. In October we took it to Congress for the first time and it was rejected. We presented it a second time, which was also rejected and again, out of conviction, we presented it a third time and it was approved. It is on December 22 when we are told that we can now collect the sheets for the 500,000 signatures we have to collect. We have set a target of 600,000 because we know that some may be cancelled. Let's go for 600,000! We ask Spanish citizens, because they must be signatures with a Spanish ID card, to get involved. We cannot allow people to be left out of the system, we cannot allow it.
What is the deadline for collecting signatures? And where can a person interested in supporting the initiative go?
We have until September 23rd to collect signatures. We have little time, and we are aware that the summer is passing us by. Therefore, we are attending or organizing events to collect as many signatures as possible in a short period of time.
How do you assess the support received so far from the general public?
We were in the Plaza de la Virgen, in Valencia, this past Saturday and it was very pleasant. Of course, we have encountered people who are not sensitized and are not interested in knowing about it, but there is a large majority who are. And I especially want to highlight the elderly people who come and after all they have experienced, they want to be there.
