I recently returned from Seville where I spent several days over Semana Santa. We were warned by a local lady to be careful in and around the Barrio Santa Cruz where we were staying but we neither experienced nor saw anything untoward. I did notice, however, several South American families who were out enjoying Semana Santa with everyone else. I assume these families had emigrated to Spain, they were well dressed - not expensively, they were probably working people - looked "respectable" etc so it just goes to show that not all immigrants do not wish to, or are incapable of, integation with the Spanish. In the UK much is made of the issue of asylum seekers who are often condemned as just being in the country for the social security benefits and the easy life. People never stop to consider what these asylum seekers might have been through and the experiences which forced them to leave their homelands. I can't imagine what the UK would be like now if nobody had emigrated to the country. Probably pretty crap!

ERT,

since you have been so willing to "enlighten" us with your links I have a link JUST FOR YOU.

LINK PARA ERT

Bricamb,
Thank you for your reasonable and objective response! You say: The same can be said of the United States! Without immigration the U.S. would not be the great economic power that it is today.

Guapetona, Excellent site for all paranoid, masochists, who fail to understand that legal immigration will save the countries of Europe from negative population growth. In 20-40 years they will be glad that intrepid peoples from all over the world chose thier country to settle.

Look at the articles in this thread about immigration.

miche,

For your information the responsible of the assasination of that Ecuatorian man in Maremagnum in Barcelon was James Anglada, another SOUTHAMERICAN IMMIGRANT IN SPAIN:

http://noticias.ya.com/fotos/200202/0806.htm

The cause of the death of the equatorian was not that he was hurt during the fight (he was hurt indeed but that wasn´t the cause of the death). The cause of the death was when he was thrown to the sea. Guess, who was the one that throw that Ecuatorian man to the sea??. James Anglada, ANOTHER SOUTHAMERICAN IMMIGRANT:

http://www.noticiasdenavarra.com/ediciones/20020210/espana/d10esp0303.php

"Tres de los cuatro implicados en la muerte del ecuatoriano han salido en libertad bajo fianza mientras que el principal implicado, James Anglada, ingresó en la cárcel Modelo de Barcelona tras confesar que tiró al mar a Pacheco y asegurar que se trató de un accidente".

http://arcos.inf.uc3m.es/~juange/lro/00-01/grupos/mirror/www.estrelladigital.es/

"La juez dicta prisión para James Anglada tras reconocer que tiró al mar al ecuatoriano del 'caso Maremagnum'".

The Ecuatorian man was so drunk that he reacted in a violent way when he couldn´t get into the pub. Drunk people are not allowed to enter into pubs. He took several bottles and hurt with them to the guards of the disco in the head. But I repeat it, guards of discoteques are always very stupid and violent. But I repeat it, the cause of the death was that he died "ahogado" in the sea. James Anglada (ANOTHER SOUTHAMERICAN INMIGRANT) was the one that threw him to the sea. So, now take your own words and don´t say so many irrealities. You´ve been ridiculous trying to put a news from 5 months ago trying to make us believe that it was a Spaniard the murder when it was James Anglada, ANOTHER SOUTHAMERICAN INMIGRANT. But, in the last 5 months I can put 100 news were Ecuatorians were involved (assasination, murders, reyertas, rapes,...).

So you can eat your own words now. You´ve been ridiculized by your own words...

miche, also wrote:

"I hope my bronze and black brothers kick your f****** arses!"

That is the kind of expressing that many southamericans have (the so-called """""hispanics""""". There is nothing more incoherent to see pure indians or almost pure indians call themshelves "latinos" just because they speak a latin tongue. If the Romans (Roman Empire) saw it....I wonder what Ecuatorians or most southamericans have of "Hispanic" or "latino". Can you tell me?). Did you get an education where you were at school?.

Bricamb, there are 4000 million of poors in the world. Should they be allowed to enter into Europe because they are all poor in their own countries??. Should Europe let all africans (500 millions) come to Europe because they are poor there??. Why don´t they start to take responsible meassure like controling their own natality like We Europeans are doing??. Why Southamerican amerindian/mestizos families have 8 sons if they can´t feed them??. Why is it that after they have had 8 sons they realize that they can´t feed them and so they have to emmigrate to Europe or ask for money to the government?. It´s their own irresponsability why they are so poor and unsuccesful. Bricamb, in 50 years many europeans will be outnumbered by africans, southamericans, asians in their own country. Do you like it?.

Booklady wrote this:
"The same can be said of the United States! Without immigration the U.S. would not be the great economic power that it is today."

If the US is a great economic power it is not becaue 30 million mexicans have entered into the US to dish or work in the Burguer Kind. It is because there are 230 million of Europeans that have made that country a great economic power. If there were 230 million of Mexicans in the US and just 15 million of Europeans, the US would be another Mexico=third world country.

Booklady wrote this:

"who fail to understand that legal immigration will save the countries of Europe from negative population growth. In 20-40 years they will be glad that intrepid peoples from all over the world chose thier country to settle."

A tipical answer from a letf-mind (communist) person. Southamerica is full of populist, communist persons. That is why you will never be capable of make prosperous societies.

Intrepid people??????. Yes........I prefer not to answer this. If they were so intrepid why all of their countries have always been third-world countries??. So, those "intrepid" people that have ruined their country want to teach Europeans how to make a developped country, don´t they??....

I quit. It´s unbelievable how people can manipulate FACTS to suit their interests. "Intrepid people", "they will save Europe from dissapering because our low natality", "A drunk a violent ecuatorian person has been killed by another SOUTHAMERICAN immigrant and someone tries to convince us that Spaniards are violent", and so on...

I don´t think I´m going to reply in this thread again (may be I will do some puntual observations to people that show coherent arguments). Some posters in this thread ssupport their beliefs with fallacies and manipulations.

*Sorry MadridMan to post this kind of threads. Maybe it is not your intention to have this kind of political issues in your messageboard. I won´t post them again.

It's a fallacy that crime is driven by poverty only. It's driven by greed, no matter the social or economic status of the criminal.

Our recent wave of corporate crime in the USA was created by criminals who were very wealthy indeed. In enriching themselves further at the cost of their stockholders and employees they imposed hardships on vastly more persons than any one-on-one pickpocket ever did.

Curiously, the probability that these big-time thieves will be punished for their crimes and forced to make restitution seems inversely proportional to the huge amounts they stole.
Cantabene

ERT - immigration has been going on in the world for thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of years. You need only look at Spain with its waves of different cultures crossing the Straits of Gibraltar and the Pyrenees. They have all contribued to make Spain what it is today, same with the UK with the Romans, Vikings, Normans etc. It has been my experience that immigrants at the end of the day do tend to adopt the habits and customs of the country they've moved to. Which doesn't means to say that they should drop their owns customs or traditions. If you come to the UK for example and need to go to hospital, you may find you have a doctor of Indian or African origin looking after you. Most of these people have been born in the UK, gone to school here and studied here. They are British. It may be the case that the Spanish are not used to seeing immigrants coming into their country but if you give them a chance you may find that they will be a positive thing for Spain.

Booklady - thanks for the kind words .

ERT, don't worry about my education because one thing is for sure and that is that it's better than yours.

Oh yes, James Anglada bouncer from adjacent club hmmm he's got a brown face, that's all I know.

Wilson Pacheco received up to 8 known blows to his body before he drowned, Anglada was responsible for throwing him in the water and not for the attacks before. One blow would have been enough to secure a person's death especially if thrown into into the sea but Pacheco received God knows how many by the other guards.
Of course they went free, i'm not surprised at all. They made a good enough job of finishing him off as much as James Anglada.

Big money was involved in setting them free because the interests of the port side clubs were at stake.

It's common practice in Spain not to let in South Americans, Gitanos and Moros and and and.

Fight back for your life and you'll be tagged a drunken and disorderly less than human person.

Bricamb,

In the History of Spain you will see that the 3 colectives of non-European stock that have emmigrated to Spain have been taken out of Spain because they couldn´t cohabit with Spaniards (Jews and Moors). The other group is the gypsies. They have been in Spain for 500 years yet they have never integrated. The rest of the groups that conform the Spanish colective were European (celts, goths, romans, greeks, suevos), ie, they assimilated perfectly. The Iberians (the other group that conform the Spanish colective is considered the oldest European group -it came from Northafrica but thousands years ago all human groups started in Africa-.).

It is the same for the UK, Romans, Vikings, Normans, etc were of purely European stock and perfectly assimilable. I wonder if the UK would have reacted in the same way if they were invaded in the past by Moors, other africans, asians or others. I´m sure that they would have had problems with them and they would have not assimilated as they didn´t did in Spain either.

So, Europe is not a place made of non-European ethnicities as you are trying to prove (i´m just showing what really happened, not trying to denigrate non-european ethnicities). Asians, Africans, Southamerican amerindians or others have not been immigrants in Europe in other ages. So don´t try to make us believe that it is the same when the Normands emmigrated to the UK than if the Sudanese had emigrated to the UK. It is not the same in terms of assimilation. And History have showed us it. So comparing assimilable ethnicities (European ethnicities) with non-assimilable ethnicities is not a proper way to try to convince people of the good thing that non-assimilable ethnicities will represent for our countries.

Bricamb, could you answer this questions (I would like realistic answers, not utophic theories)?:

1. Why is it that in London, there is a norm that says that in the neighbourhoods were immigrants represent a large number, those are the neighbourhoods that have the higher crimes and delinquency rates?. Why is it that that is a NORM and it is the same in other English cities and also in Spanish or other European cities?. Do you like it?. Do you think that that is a good thing?. Is it good for English society?. Does it mean any kind of assimilation and integration?

2. Were you happy when normal people (not common delinquents but just young average immigrants) from Pakistan or India were hitting young white english people in the streets 2 years ago?. Were you happy when that happened?. Was it an example of assimilation?. Why is it when neighbourhoods were very large immigrant population exist there are always problems between the immigrants and the native population?.

3. Would you be happy when ethnic white English people will be outnumbered by Pakistanis, Indians, or Jamaicans in the English cities?. Why can you hate that much your people to don´t mind that many English cities will be muslim by the end of the XXI century?. Amsterdam will be muslim by 2020. That is why Pim Fortuyn (far-right party) have had lots of votes in Netherlands. People don´t like massive immigration, specially if it is so unasimilable as the muslims in Europe.

If that means assimilation then I don´t know what is non-assimilation.

miche,.....all your replies shows your incoherence and incapacity of taking proper conclussions.

Again:

1.
You wrote:

"ERT, don't worry about my education because one thing is for sure and that is that it's better than yours."

That is again an incoherent argument because you have showed exactly the contrary with this statement in a previous post:

"I hope my bronze and black brothers kick your f****** arses!"

And also I have to post something you said to me in another post:

"If you lack the [censored] to say it in the face"

or something like it...(so don´t try to show your "good" education after you have said that in previous posts, everyone can see it with their eyes, you wrote it in previous posts)

Great education you have...

So if that is been educated, then I don´t want to think what is being educated for you. And then if you want to lie when facts have showed otherwise, that is your problem. So, are you a lier (trying to convince us that you are an educated person when you have showed the contrary) or ar you an uneducated person?. Be coherent and don´t say incoherent statements.

2. I´ve showed you with links news where it is CLEARLY EXPRESSED that James Anglada was the one that threw the ecuatorian man to the sea. And I have showed also in a link that the cause of the death was "ahogamiento". And now...you try to manipulate things and try to convince us (because of course...you saw it with your own eyes and the journalists and the judge didn´t...) that he died because the hitting of the other guards...Ok, if you can do magic that is good for you. Go to the court and tell them that their investigation is wrong and that he died because the other guards hit him...

3. And for this: "Fight back for your life and you'll be tagged a drunken and disorderly less than human person".I don´t think you are the proper person to tell anybody how to manage his life... Are you so arrogant to tell people how to manage their lives?. That says a lot of you.

miche...you have showed your ridicolous statements, incoherences, and manipulations in this thread. miche, don´t bother to reply to me I´m not going to read your reply.

Wolf,

“Are we to gather from your report that nobody had ever been stabbed by a Spaniard in the past? Are we also to believe that absolutely no Spaniards committed a crime during the last several days, or physically harmed anyone?”
Wow! That's kind of tough to swallow, isn't it?

-To answer your question; I'm sure during the last several days SOME Spaniard must have harmed someone, in some way, it would be idiotic not to think that, but as far as killings go, apart from the minors from Ecuador who have killed the Spanish kid, because he asked them what a fight that had taken place the previous day was all about; there has been a Spanish man who has killed his daughter, this having something to do with the fact that he had either gotten separated or divorced from her mum (domestic violence towards women, now THAT is another very interesting and seemingly “popular activity”). And finally, today a couple of gipsy youngsters were killed by others just this morning, the motive? "un ajuste de cuentas' (I really don't know how to translate it), apart from the gypsies, that are traditionally big on these, most foreign mobs operating in Spain, are seemingly “very keen” on performing them, and THAT is a big problem if you ask me.

Actually, I guess this little statistic about what has gone on during the last few days is, to me, quite representative of the general crime scene in our country nowadays. Most murders and violent attacks either do involve immigrants, (like it or not!), mobs or gangs members to be more precise; are related to domestic violence (both Spanish and foreigners alike commit these), OR are related to drugs, or drug dealing (again, both “groups” are likely to take part on these).

Tough to swallow? It may be, but who still believes we live in a fair, or as I call it “la,la,la world”?

“Some people just don't realize the positive impact that immigration ends up having on society.”

-I agree 100% with you on that one Wolf, and it would be SO COOL if the immigration phenomenon could be just a totally “free and natural” thing, but I'm afraid facts show us that there needs to be some control over it, I believe you were the one who asked at the beginning of this thread why Spain didn't deport the immigrants who committed felonies; well, all I'm saying is, that's the kind of thing we'd need to be sorting out.

Fernando,

“Though it is true that Spain has always been a safe country, it is not less true that we have had crime all of the time (as any other country), and that those crimes were committed by Spaniards (a minority of them by gypsies).”
What has happened is that the immigrants who came here to commit crimes have been added to this pool of undesirables.”

-Of course, unfortunately, violence is part of the human condition, and Spanish people were humans last time I checked; however, can you honestly say that your “Spanish ears” don't feel shocked every time that you watch the news and hear about yet another incident involving a GUN weapon?, because that was something pretty much unheard of for me until I turned what, 25? And seriously, do you feel now just as safe, in the streets of Madrid, as you did 10 ago? I wished I did.
In my view, you totally hit the nail on the head when you pointed out that different cultures have a different attitude towards violence; my God! Many Colombian kids in most Colombian cities, AND their teachers for protection, carry guns to class! (guess they hardly ever flunk, uh?)

ERT,

“What I'm trying to explain is that multicultural societies have never worked and it is a fantasy to believe the contrary when factual data have shown otherwise.”

-I feel bad for you ERT, I believe that statement to be wrong, as I sort of expressed before, in my comment to Wolf; but also extremely pessimistic, considering the fact that in time there will probably be ONE big society, and totally multicultural,….and I really hope it works!!!

“….(like those of Colombia, Venezuela, Chile, Honduras,...)….They come from countries where life doesn't mean much for many of them”

-Mmm….I've always feared that sentiment, while I think I can understand where you're coming from when you say that (see my previous last comment to Fernando), I believe that to be a very DANGEROUS thought; I mean, the moment one thinks that others don't appreciate their own lives as much as one does, then it starts to seem much simpler, or like a better idea, to hurt, or even get rid off, those “other people” altogether! Personally, I choose to believe that, although it might not “seem” so, Iraqi, Ethiopian, American, Colombian, Chinese or Spanish mothers' feelings after the deaths of their children are pretty much the same.
It also seems to me that you generalize “big time”. Think of your Brazilian friend, there must be many other immigrants just like her, don't you think?

Miche,

“How many wrongs are done to both legal and illegal immigrants? But these injustices are not in 'El Mundo' who only on the whole choose to report the worst possible facets of immigration.”

-Of course these occasional injustices, like the killing at the Maremagnum in Barcelona, are covered by El Mundo, and every other Spanish newspaper!, Terra's source, EFE news agency, is Spanish; or are you trying to accuse all Spanish journalists of blatant racism?!

“This is obviously how all Spaniards behave to immigrants.”

-Ooops! I guess, you were indeed calling the media AND the rest of this society racists. Don't you think you too are generalizing a little?

Booklady,

“Spain seems to have the lowest murder rates among Southern European countries and that is probably why so many people feel safe there.”

-This sounds to me a little like the saying, I don't know if you're familiar with it, “'mal de muchos, consuelo de tontos'”, meaning, yes, compared to many countries this is still a very safe place to live, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't work towards trying to keep it, at least at it is (violence-wise), and avoid it getting worse, don't you agree?
Somebody, I don't remember whom, made an excellent point, mentioning that there MUST BE a reason behind the remarkable rising of some right-wing-extremist (nazi-sympathizers! ) political parties in Europe in recent years. Scary!

ERT,

Booklady a communist?, that must be a joke, right?

Oye, Paloma,
I believe that you took my comment out of context, it was in reply to what Fernando had said. However, if you are implying I am a tonta (dummy), remember that it takes one to know one! :p Kidding of course!

Yes,it is true that Spain is still a safe place to live, at least my family who live in Asturias and Galicia assure me that Spain is a safe place to live, and after a cursory look at your Interpol crime statistics. All countries try, in varying degrees of success, to keep their nations safe from all types of crime. Including terrorism, which is a heinous crime,and is such a concern to all of us, don't you agree?

Yes, I agree with your statement: "but that doesn't mean we shouldn't work towards trying to keep it, at least at it is (violence-wise)" as long as it is achieved in a democratic manner, as Spain has done, via legislation.

I think that Bricamb has focused on the problem well. For over forty years Spain was not a country that people immigrated. The opposite was true, many spaniards immigrated to Latin American countries, like Cuba, etc. So incoming immigration is a new phenomena in Spain, at least for this last fifty years or so. The ministry of the Interior of Spain has said that What we all can agree is that along with desirable legal immigration you get the undesirable criminal elements that feed on the newcomers and the locals. This phenomena has been well documented here in the United States and in other European countries, that have had a longer history of immigration.

However, the Spanish government will, I am sure, take the necessary steps to protect its people from such elements. I have read several interesting articles about this problem, since I am planning to live in Spain after I retire.

ERT,
Don't take my word for it, take PIMS, I am not a communist. I believe in individualism, individual freedom and liberty, and a free market economy! the opposite of communism!