One in three people accompanied by Cáritas in 2022 was in an irregular administrative situation and 17% live in homes with serious nutrition problems.
“The majority of the population of immigrant origin go on being strongly concentrated and segregated in the lower part of the Spanish social structure“. Says it Cáritas, which sees it day by day. One in three people accompanied by Cáritas in 2022 was in an irregular administrative situation. The stark portrait of the people the entity serves talks about precariousness and exclusion: 17% live in homes with “serious nutritional problems”: with someone “who has frequently gone hungry in the last 10 years” or “they are having it now”, while more than half (57%) live in homes where economic precariousness forces them to give up when purchasing certain medications, following diets or treatments.
These are data that speak of exclusion. If in the Spanish population the incidence of social exclusion is 26%, for people of non-EU origin it rises to 68%, and even up to 81% for those who are in an irregular administrative situation, an incidence three times higher.
In the absence of official figures, indicates Cáritas, the report makes an estimate of the number of people in an irregular administrative situation
This is reflected in the FOCUS document, entitled ‘Vulneration of Rights. People in an irregular administrative situation’, published this Wednesday by the FOESSA Foundation and whose objective is to analyze the consequences that it has extreme economic precariousness on their lives and not being able to access housing assistance, health care or employment. In the absence of official figures, indicates Cáritas, the report estimates the number of people in an irregular administrative situation based on the data provided. the social action programs of the entity that welcomes these people.
Insufficient data
According to these figures, 32% of people accompanied by Cáritas through its programs and resources in 2022 were in an irregular administrative situation. In absolute numbers there are 500,000 people, 43% more than throughout 2019. The average period of support that these people need ranges between 1 and 2 years. “Although the data is insufficient In order to approximate the real number of people in an irregular administrative situation in Spain, they are sufficient to generate an approximation realistic and representative about your situation“explains Thomas Ubrich of the FOESSA Foundation and member of the Cáritas Española Studies team.
There is a direct relationship between the lack of recognition and access to the right to health, employment and housing assistance.
The study indicates that there is a direct relationship between the lack of recognition and access to the right to health, access to employment and housing assistance and the greater incidence of social exclusion traits in this group of people. So, 28% of people in an irregular administrative situation lives in households with all active people unemployed. In the case of being the “main breadwinners of the household”, 23% have a job without a legal contract and without quoting Social Security.
Discriminatory treatment
Three out of every ten (31%) people in an irregular administrative situation served by Cáritas also acknowledge that they have suffered “discriminatory treatment” due to their nationality or ethnic origin, compared to 22% of non-EU people and 5% of Spanish people. Access to housing is one of the biggest obstacles. Seven out of 10 have to bear excessive housing expenses that make it very difficult for them to cover other essential expenses.
Thus, the lack of stable and sufficient income often forces them to live in houses with significant lack of habitability (17% with unhealthy situations) or in severe overcrowding (35%). Other people, 24%, live in precarious housing (11% of people with non-EU origin or 5% with Spanish nationality). And if we talk about health, The report reveals two major problems: access to medicines – that 57% of migrants who live in homes where economic precariousness forces them to give up the purchase of certain drugs– and to the system itself.
People in an irregular administrative situation, depending on the territories, also have “many difficulties” to see their right to health care recognized, Cáritas denounces
Cáritas emphasizes that, despite the modification carried out in the regulations for access to health care with the Royal Decree 7/2018 that repealed Royal Decree 16/2012people in an irregular administrative situation, depending on the territories, also have “many difficulties” to see this right recognized, which, after the reform, “has been left to the discretion of regional regulations“.
Labor inclusion
From Cáritas they explain that not having a residence or work authorization “makes labor inclusion very difficult, despite, the indispensable condition to achieve almost any authorization for exceptional reasons. The primary obstacle, they affect, arises “of the intrinsic logic of the general immigration regime” and “the practical non-existence of legal and safe means of entry into Spain, as well as the majority requirement of a job to access an exceptional authorization when foreign people are already our neighbors“.
The humanitarian organization concludes that “to guarantee the human rights of migrated people, it is essential to be able to move towards “a real implementation of the legal entry routes that currently have had little regulatory developmentbut we must also advance in a legal solution that guarantees all their rights and that do not leave in the limbo of irregularity to people who have been contributing to our society for years”, a suggestion that is part of the eight political proposals that the entity presented to the entire parliamentary arc last June on the occasion of the general elections.