The Spanish government plans to offer unemployed immigrants advance payment of their benefits if they return to their countries of origin — and agree to stay there for at least three years.
The Spanish labor ministry said 100,000 immigrants from 19 countries would be eligible to receive the payout but it expects only between 10 percent and 20 percent to agree to the trade-off. The government is expected to approve the plan in September.
Spain’s immigrant population has swelled to roughly 10 percent of the population in the past decade as builders and developers offered seemingly endless work opportunities. But with the international economy flagging and Spain’s construction boom going bust, the immigrants are expected to be among the hardest hit.
Immigrant rights groups have reacted coolly to the scheme.
“We are talking not just about workers but about human beings,” Alvaro Zuleta, president of the Colombian group Aculco, said. “We need to make sure that the immigrant who agrees to return finds the right conditions to restart his life.”
However, he expected some Colombian immigrants, who earn between 750 euros (US$1,200) and 1,500 euros a month, to agree to the deal if the economic crisis worsened.
As many as 165,000 immigrants from outside the EU are unemployed, but not all would be eligible for the deal because their home countries do not have reciprocal agreements with Spain.
Unemployed workers receive about 70 percent of their salary for the first six months without a job, then up to 60 percent for up to two years. Under the proposed deal, workers would receive 40 percent of that money while in Spain and 60 percent on arrival in their home countries. They would then have priority in obtaining working papers if they reapplied to return to Spain after five years.
DITCH TACTICS: Kenyan officers were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch suspected to have been deliberately dug by Haitian gang members A Kenyan policeman deployed in Haiti has gone missing after violent gangs attacked a group of officers on a rescue mission, a UN-backed multinational security mission said in a statement yesterday. The Kenyan officers on Tuesday were on their way to rescue Haitian police stuck in a ditch “suspected to have been deliberately dug by gangs,” the statement said, adding that “specialized teams have been deployed” to search for the missing officer. Local media outlets in Haiti reported that the officer had been killed and videos of a lifeless man clothed in Kenyan uniform were shared on social media. Gang violence has left
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but