94% of migrants in Spain entered the country legally, says Pedro Sánchez
40% of migrants in Spain are Latin American, 30% are European and 20% come from the African continent, said the President of the Spanish Government, Pedro Sánchez.
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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Wednesday made a passionate defence of the migrant population in Spain against hoaxes and misinformation and recalled, among other data, that 94% of the foreign population entered the country legally.
During his appearance in the Spanish Congress to report on his government’s management of migration, Sánchez attacked the right and the far right for spreading disinformation on this issue: “We have seen how they try to create a monster where there are only human beings looking for an opportunity,” he reproached them.
He accused these opposition groups of talking about “alleged invasions” where there is only “a population movement that has been going on for many decades” and of trying to “generate a blockade and a feeling of collapse in an artificial and intentional way.”
In response to this, Sánchez provided some data, such as that in the last 10 years, 94% of migrants who arrived in Spain did so “in a completely legal and regulated manner” to meet their families, study or enter the labour market.
Origin of migrants in Spain
He also pointed out that, of the total number of regular and irregular migrants, 40% are Latin American, 30% are European and 20% come from the African continent: “This is a diverse migration that bears no resemblance to the image that the far right and the right want to convey.”
The Spanish president accused the conservative Popular Party (PP) and the far-right Vox of saying that migrants “come to laze around and hoard subsidies” when, he stressed, the foreign population in Spain has an activity rate 4 points higher than that of national citizens.
Regarding the belief that migrants come to Spain to take jobs from Spaniards, he recalled that most of them perform “invisible professions, with a high degree of precariousness”, and that without them sectors such as agriculture, construction or hospitality would collapse, since they represent between 25 and 50% of their workers.
The Spanish Prime Minister also addressed the “peak” of irregular immigration arrivals recorded in recent weeks, especially in the Atlantic archipelago of the Canary Islands, which – he stressed – is common to other entry routes into Europe and is not greater than others that have occurred in the recent past.
