Oh, guess what ?

Hello Everyone,

I was reading the newspaper today, and I came across an interesting article. It was about the new immigration laws.

You´ve all heard me bitch about how I can´t get legal working papers. Well, it turns out that 85% of the immigrants here are in the same position as me and we can´t take advantage of the new law. The Spanish govt makes a new law that makes it easier for illegals to get papers, and 85% of the people can´t even take advantage of it. Go figure. This is Spain. You´re bound to get screwed somehow. You think I am just being negative ? Or perhaps I just had a bad day. No. That´s not it. If you are a foreigner here, I can guarantee you that there is a 99% chance that you will get screwed SOMEHOW. And if you´ve been to Spain and you disagree with me, well maybe you didn´t notice that you got taken advantage of somehow. Whether you get robbed, don´t get paid or your applications to the government get mixed up. It happens to me, it happens to everyone.

What happened is that many people, myself included didn´t register in the town hall before August 7th. No one new about the new law at the time. It didn´t exist. There are some people that have been here before August 7th and they asked their landlords to help them register. But if you are African, Arab or Pakistani the landlords are more likely to be racist against you and won´t help you. They think you are more likely to commit a crime and don´t want to be connected to it. Strike One.

Another requirement to get papers is that you need to have a 6 month contract from your job. I read about a Bulgarian woman that works in a kitchen. Her bosses are charging her about a 1,000 dollars to get a contract because they know she needs it to get papers. Strike two.

The last requirement is proof of your criminal past or lack thereof. That takes a while to get, and many people are having trouble making the deadlines. Strike three.

I hope that the government will wake up and loosen the laws a little bit. I heard that they probably will.

The funny thing is even though I am screwed and can´t get papers now, I had a little feeling that somehow it will work out in the end. It´s just a feeling. Who knows if it will really happen or not.

Ciao.