Facing the difference

You face "rafters" trying to reach Florida's coast. We in Spain face "pateras" braving the Strait of Gibraltar's strong currents to reach Andalusian land (where the policy is sending them back home even if they get dry feet). We have a wall of shame too, raised at the border between Ceuta and Melilla and Morocco. So, despite being so different US and Spain deal with the phenomena of immigration in quite a similar way: by putting up a determined fight against it.

US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Immigration has been intensified through raids and deportations, especially in North Carolina and Iowa. According to a 2007 Urban Institute report, the number of undocumented immigrants arrested in workplaces increased more than seven-fold from 500 to 3.600 between 2002 and 2006. In Spain, deportations are very common since the very beginning of illegal immigration in the 1990s. Like US and other European countries, we even have specific prisons for holding undocumented immigrants for days before deporting them.

But Spain has a shorter experience than US in dealing with such a high rates of immigration. We still have to pass through some stages that you have already left behind. Associate professor of Urban Planning at UCLA School of Public Affairs, Leo Estrada, pointed out one difference: "Here (in US) the spirit of tolerance is very high and what happens in Europe is that the spirit of tolerance is very low. It is a matter of time."

Even though he did acknowledge some "tensions" between different groups in US, he was sure that its longer history of accommodating these differences make things easier here, especially in California. I am not pretty sure whether this co-existence is so good in all the states, but what is true is that in Spain we do have some problems that we need to fix.

Ignorance and some kind of fear of losing their national and cultural identity bring people in my country to do such ugly things as protesting against building of a mosque in their neighborhood. And giving immigrants the worst jobs and the lowest positions in our society.

And I think this is one thing that US does better: giving them a chance. As Estrada told us, undocumented immigrants are able to set up and run small businesses here or even get some good jobs. Therefore, from the very beginning they really have a chance to get better living conditions than in their countries, which many undocumented immigrants in my country can't say. And which is, actually, the only thing that they are looking for. The only reason for them to jump into a raft, into a "patera", or over a wall.