Since early Monday morning, thousands of people have queued at different points in Catalonia to gather the necessary documentation to begin their regularization process. In L’Hospitalet de Llobregat (Barcelona), at the La Farga fairgrounds – adapted by the City Council specifically to facilitate the procedure – the queue already reached 5,000 people by 10 am, according to security sources. At midday, the Citizen Service Office (OAC) had planned to serve about 1,500 people, while the rest obtained an appointment for the coming days. The social vulnerability certificate must be obtained in the municipality where the applicant is registered. It is not mandatory in all cases, but people in an irregular situation have the right to request it and, therefore, prefer to process it to ensure the process moves forward.
The crowd that gathered this morning in L’Hospitalet de Llobregat seeks to obtain the document required in the most recent version of the extraordinary regularization law approved by the Government. Accompanied by stools and bags, some arrived from one in the morning to secure a turn. Robert, who lived in Poland and has been in Spain for a year, points to the lack of foresight as one of the main problems. “They informed us of the need for this certificate a few days ago and we couldn’t prepare it sooner.” The fear, he says, is not arriving on time: “We have less than two months and the system could collapse,” he stresses.
Víctor and Larisa, a Brazilian couple, had been in the kilometer-long queue since five in the morning. They arrived in Spain in October and also came to request the vulnerability certificate issued by the City Council. Larisa, a nursing doctoral student at the University of Barcelona, accompanies her boyfriend and explains that the process has been confusing: “It’s hard for us to find information, especially about this certificate. We went to register last Thursday at an OAC and, luckily, we discovered this procedure.” Since his arrival, Víctor, who is currently looking for work, has worked in a supermarket seven days a week, with barely fifteen minutes of rest to eat, for a salary of 1,100 euros. “I haven’t had any kind of security and with regularization I’m looking for some stability,” he adds.
Amparo, along with her brother Jonathan, have come to the office with the expectation of better working conditions with regularization. “I work cleaning from seven in the morning until nine at night and I want to be able to live more peacefully,” says the Bolivian. And, in the same queue, there are those who have not been able to find work due to lack of documentation. Saadia, a 34-year-old Moroccan, who has been in Spain for seven years, currently lives at her sister’s house and has a certificate as a seamstress. “I want to work, but without papers I can’t find anything,” she explains. Her administrative situation also prevents her from traveling to Morocco to see her parents.
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At the Municipal Citizen Service Office of Figueres (OMAC), queues have been seen since last Thursday to request documentation related to the new extraordinary regularization process for migrants. One of the most demanded documents is the historical registration certificate, which can serve to prove continuous presence and residence in the territory. Until now, office workers have had to go out every day to announce that tickets, meaning the hours for the day, had run out. Those who intend to regularize their situation access the OMAC just like those who go to process the payment of fees and receipts or to request all kinds of documents and certificates. The application period opened on the 16th electronically and in-person processing began today, reports Marta Rodríguez.
Among the applicants, concern about the lack of clear information is repeated. “An error or the absence of a document can end the entire process,” says Robert. In addition, many are looking for something in Hospitalet that they will not find. “There are many who come from Badalona or Santa Coloma de Gramenet, but we are informing everyone in the queue that the vulnerability certificate can only be processed in the municipality where one is registered,” explain sources from the City Council.
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