May 1st, 2009. New York City.

Children born to Ecuadorian and Chilean parents living in Spain will no longer receive Spanish citizenship upon birth, writes the Spanish daily El Pais.

As in the United States, children born on Spanish soil are automatically considered citizens. According to the Spanish Civil Code, the Spanish citizenship is automatically given to those "born on the Spanish soil to foreign parents, if the legislation of neither of the parents' countries does not automatically confer citizenship upon the child." The recent constitutional changes in Chile and Ecuador that now grant automatic citizenship to those born outside of these countries to parents who are Ecuadorian and Chilean citizens, absolve the Spanish state of responsibility of providing protection to what would otherwise be considered stateless persons.

This would seem to be a rather devastating development. For someone who is interested in the questions of citizenship and belonging, I am wondering how have the attempts of these countries to "reach out" to their diasporas (by revising their legislation) seen by the "benefactors." Both Ecuador and Spain recognize dual citizenship; how hard will it be for these children to obtain Spanish citizenship in the light of the current economic situation and the anti-immigration sentiments it has highlighted?

Police unions and immigration groups in Spain have expressed their concern about the alleged quotas imposed upon police departments for arresting undocumented immigrants,  AP reports.  A memo leaked to the Spanish press purports that in one neighborhood in Spain, police officers were instructed to arrest at least 30 undocumented people per week.

In the neighborhoods such as Lavapíes - where many Moroccan, Ecuadorian and Chinese immigrants have settled - both the fear and the police presence are overwhelming. According to another AP report, the documentation raids - often based on racial profiling - have been on the rise in these predominantly immigrant areas of Madrid.  These are arbitrary checks, targeting "foreign-looking" individuals in the train stations, on the streets and even in parks as families gather for weekend picnics, said Gaby Paz y Mino, a Madrid correspondent for an Ecuadorian daily El Comercio.

Another colleague reporter for Latino newspaper in Spain wrote this past summer about mass raids in smaller towns in Murcia that are temporary home to many immigrant agricultural and construction workers.  Over 300 immigrants were bused last June - apprehended on the street, at work or in locutorios (long-distance phone centers) as they were making phone calls to their families at home - to the central plaza of Torre Pacheco, where their papers were checked. Those without proper documents were taken to the local police stations, where they were fingerprinted and issued expulsion orders.

Not possessing proper documentation is not a crime in Spain. Rather, it is considered a civil offense and immigrants are often released within 24 hours with expulsion orders that are rarely enforced, according to the AP report. The procedure, however, is the same as for anyone who has committed a criminal act: immigrants are fingerprinted and their photos taken at the police station "despite only committing 'an administrative fault, not a criminal offense,'" said Alfredo Perdiguero, a Police Union spokesman as quoted in the AP article.

Instead of harassing people going to work, he continued, Spanish police should concentrate on arresting people who actually break the law. Personally, I find it laudable that the complaint is voiced by the police itself, recognizing the injustice of the situation.

The quotas - if confirmed true - are just another signal of the José Luis Zapatero government's once pro-immigrant stance hardening under the pressures of the suffering economy.  After enjoying a growth spurt in the last few years in large part thanks to its booming construction industry, Spain is currently enduring alarming unemployment rates, a consequence of the housing bubble crash.  According to the latest government statistics, unemployment has reached 14 percent, with numbers amongst immigrants much higher.

Inhumane and detestable, the quota system is not a phenomenon limited to Spain.  An AP article published yesterday mentions similar policies at work in a 2007 convenience store raid in Baltimore, MD that resulted in the arrest of 24 Latino men.