I had an interesting conversation today with a person I don´t want to reveal its identity. The good news is that the current stance of the government on our first source of crime, namely illegal emigration is much tougher than what I had previously thought. I don´t want to make public what I was told. If this hasn´t hit the news is because it may stir too conscientious minds and the government may be forced to stop doing it. The zero tolerance promised by our president is becoming a reality.

Hello Paquito! Andrés! You have ANOTHER username!?! Please choose one and I'll delete the other. All members are only allowed ONE username.

Thanks for the information. Are we talking about Spain in general or about Madrid in particular? I'm happy to know efforts are stiffened to stop (or slow down) illegal emigration to Spain and also crime. This statistic will be important as the number of potential 2012 Olympic cities is narrowed next year. Please keep us informed if you can. Thank you!

Saludos, MadridMan

Tonight, an hour ago, I called the police for a colombian guy who had been mugged by six other latinos (or so he said). The police won't be able to do anyting because by when they reach, they'll have fled away.

I don't want our cities to become a new Bronx or Harlem!

Ignacio:

Un pequenno consejo: I would be very careful using Bronx and Harlem as symbols of horrible environments.

I am afraid that you really do not know either area of NYC and a comment like that carries -- for us in the NYC area and in the US--, a heavy handed signal of racism. To begin with Harlem is part of Manhattan (starting at 110th st) and Bronx ...well, enough. I think that a comment like that is not proper.

JA, I thought i was alone with interpreting Ignacio's comment to the negative and feel, well a bit sick inside.

I live in London and I've visited New York and Queens, and I loved it all.

A few years back we had a racist terrorist called the nail bomber who attempted to blast areas of London with high ethnic group numbers, ie. East London, West London, and even places like Soho, a great cultural place and very popular in the gay scene. Sadly, Soho did get hit with a nail bomb and a few people died.
An article I read following this event, is one I can't forget because it was a poignant one where the writer interpreted this man's hatred for these societies as reasons as to why she and many of us feel proud to be part of such diversity. At the end of the day it was one man who represented a minority who tried to destroy the idea of harmony and success of these geographical areas and only succeeded in reinforcing how great these societies actually are.

Obviously, Paquito/Andres, MM, and Ignacio, you have many who agree with you, but I do think it's a futile way of thinking.
The way the world is going, and has been since the beginning, Spain in experiencing this influx of migration is not alone and so is not surprising. Just remember that many of Spain's exports are successful because many illegal immigrants are hired by producers and manufacturers in Spain in order to be competitive with the tight pricing inforced by and demanded by us all.

Are these immigrants not human enough to require a better way of life?

A famous novelist, (sorry her name escapes me), wrote in her column about her visit to a Hotel bar in Hong Kong where the only drink she could afford was a cup of tea. To cut a long story short she had an encounter with a hotel cleaner and when asked why the cleaner worked for such a pittance in such an establishment the response was,

"well I didn't ask to exist, I just have to survive, I have no choice".

The cost of the cup of tea was the cleaner's wage for a week, and it wasn't enough for her and her family's basic needs.

Good luck with your 'zero tolerance'.
Have you heard the expression, '...Europe ends at the Pyrenees',......

‘ F ’ornicate ‘ U ’nder ‘ C ’ommand of the ‘ K ’ing, was the slogan adopted after the plague and great fire of London when the population dwindled to an all time low. Come on Spaniards get going, keep Spain white!!!!!!

AS they say, sometimes, evil is in the mind of the reader, not of the writer.

JA: I wonder how you know that I don't know Bronx or Harlem. In fact, I do know Harlem, and the reason why I don't know Bronx is that my New York friend warned me repeteadly against it in spite of my interest in knowing it. I suppose his preventions and many other people that I met meant something about the environment. I went to Harlem by mistake, and it's horrible in a strong contrast with the rest of Manhattan.

Then, I did not say anything about races. this is one of the things that irk me most form the american lifestyle: f*cking political correctness. Yo not only have to be antiracist and write in a non-racist way, but you also have to write in a way that nobody could imagine that you are a racist. Which I am not, by no means. If Harlem had been inhabited by the whitest scandinavian-americans, I would have said the same. 'nuff said.

Miche:

First, as said above, I consider every man equal in dignity regardless of race.

Then, I am trying not to feel offended by the comparisons with those chauvinistic people I have nothing to do with. There are some facts that are out there for those who want to see them:

- Inmigration from less developed countries, most of the times illegally, looking for their particular "ElDorado" ofter dissapoints the inmigrants because money doesn't come easy not even to spaniards (unemployment and trash contracts and wages), much less to foreigners, even less to undocumented foreigners.
This leads many to crime, which is boosting the crime rate.

- The inmigrants we receive, mainly form south american countries and northern africa consists of many hard-working honest people and a higher percentage of criminals not only than in Spain but than in their countries of origin. It's amazing how the muggings, pickpockets, domestic violence and others are growing with inmigration, not to speak of driving drunk, without license or insurance, the two latter being almost unexisting in Spain previously. However, this has nothing to do with racism. There is also Russian mafia in Spain, the reason because we are not worried about them is because they are not very remarkable. Else, we would be fed up no matter how white they can be. In fact something similar happens with finding a hired flat with Polish because the abuses of the first tenants, and they are white. However, this doesn't happen with Germans or swedish or British, why? They are all white. This is not a matter of racism but of group behaviour.

- The coming of inmigrants does a real harm to the spanish workers: Makes salaries stay low or even decrease, and people have to take whatever term the employer wants the contract to be.

I have a friend from Holland who came to end his career as an architect here, in Spain, through Erasmus program. He had to go back to Holland because he saw he was bound to the "Spanish system" of employment search: Sending resumees to every known firm, taking any salary (or no salary the months or year of practice), any term, any kind of job (like reforming urinaries). he wanted to do otherwise. He went back to Holland where he could select among more offers than pupils were ending the career, the best ones.

In Spain there has been always high rates of unemployment (now lower), if we had gone on without this massive inmigration, the reduction of the spare workforce would have pushed salaries upwards, just like it happened in the rest of Europe. Unfortunately, the have gone down with the inmigrants massive assault. There has been an increased number of people working in Spain, and however, the number of unemployed people stays high. Why?

Because the people hired are inmigrants who won't go back to their countries terrible conditions even if they have to live twenty in a 70 square yards flat and will work for any amount even in two jobs because thier family needs that money .

The only ones who really benefit form the resulting situation are the firms, who gladly support a government who supplies cheap semi-slave workforce. That's why most spanish paople is for much smaller controlled, documented, and work previously offered inmigration.

Being legal they'd have their rights and could ask for better condition, stopping the shrinking of wages in all the country, having a work offer would make the criminals stay away, and would stop unemployed desperate inmigrants to become criminals. Being less (or none) would stop the unacceptably bad conditions of the whole of the country's workforce. Otherwise, they and us will be soon in the same situation they left behind.

These are important problems, and the fact that social-democrat, liberal and conservative parties don't do anything about them because of their lobbies or because they could be called racists or anything is making the fascist grow throughout Europe. It is not that these people are fascists, but that they vote the only party that gives an answer to their economic dire needs. Unfortunately. I am absolutely against fascism.

- Any person has the right to try to improve it's situation, but ¿Do 100 shipwrecked persons have the right to board a 10 persons lifeboat previously occupied by twelf people and about to sink? Would the people in the boat have the right to use the oars to keep them away? What if the sailor in command was bribed to let more people in?

- To end with a bitter unjustified attack accusing of racism, an offense and nonsense: "Have you heard the expression, '...Europe ends at the Pyrenees',......" I'll pass on answering this with a reference to your ethnic or nationality procedence.

Ignacio, I don't understand: " I'll pass on answering this with a reference to your ethnic or nationality procedence".
I'm sorry, but what is 'procedence', and what does this sentence mean?

I'm not the most eloquent writer, I realise my view of things has a lot to do with my sensibility to these issues because of my ethnicity, (Ecuadorian and Pakistani), thank you, but mainly because I know I personally could not refuse someone who is in need. Just as you take my comments to heart, think how many may be from NYC and feel the same as you do when someone conveys a negative and hurtful comment.

I don't think 'and Europe stops at the Pyrenees' is any worse than,"I don't want our cities to become a new Bronx or Harlem!" with a stupid emoticom to further accentuate your disgust for what those places represent. How does it feel?

For goodness sake, I'm fed up of people feeling they have to be PC. You should not have to feel that you have to be PC, but should be proud and clear of your convictions, and if you believe that Spain would be crime free without other nationalities, then so be it. And don't be embarassed by it.
Don't you tell me analogies about the 'boat' rubbish, because England has almost double the population of Spain though a much smaller country than Spain. I pay my taxes and wonder how will the country cope with yet further illegal immigrants and legal ones. I don't know the answers and their isn't a simple idealistic solution to it neither, so don't tell me about chauvism and not having anything to do with it.

As for driving without licences and drinking while drunk, haha, the Spanish are experts at that because your whole system allows it and the police don't do anything because they participate too. I have to add, this is and WAS the norm even before the exodus of other Spanish speaking countries into Spain.

Fortunately what we write is what we mean and feel, again, stick to your convictions, I'll stick to mine.

Lastly, you said in your previous post: "Tonight, an hour ago, I called the police for a colombian guy who had been mugged by six other latinos (or so he said). The police won't be able to do anyting because by when they reach, they'll have fled away."

Do you really expect that they should stay and greet the policemen rather than flee?!! Of course that is what a Spaniard would do. Ignacio, I am just going by what you say and by what is not said in a statement like you chose to use.
Like I said, good luck.

Ignacio,
Being born and raised in the Bronx and have visited Madrid and other parts of the world all I have to say is that your remark is plain and unadulterated ignorance. No Poetry or reasons you blabber can justfy your complete and total ignorance. Your remark is what's wrong with the world today.
ZERO Tolerance is what I have for ethnocentric people like you.
If your not ashamed...you really should be.
Piss off!

I too am offended.

Ignacio,

First: What you said was very offensive, not only to the American Board Members who live in the Bronx and Harlem, but to the immigrant population in Spain, many of which are also board members here.

Second: The immigration problem you have today is the result of the empire building Spain accomplished in previous centuries.
It is the height of hypocrisy for the Spanish of all people, to complain about immigration,legal or ilegal, since the Spanish were and are a people that immigrate frequently, and continue to do so even now. Remember the Spanish were the first to seek El Dorado. There is even a publication for Spanish immigrants titled Carta de España: Revista de emigracion e inmigracion.

Before, during and after the Spanish civil war many Spaniards became immigrants, many ilegal immigrants, in these very same South, Central and Caribbean American Countries, not to mention the thousands that became immigrants in Australia, Germany and other countries. Many board members are children of these very same Spanish immigrants! Yes, they, like many immigrants to Spain today, were looking for better opportunities and to better themselves. They too took the jobs away from the peoples of these countries, but it was a temporal lapse,in time they were accommodated and became productive citizens of these countries.

Take a look at the latest Anuario de Migraciones 2002 published by the Ministerio de Trabajo y Asunto Sociales. This document follows the immigation of Spanish citizens in the world today. There were over one and a half million of Spaniards immigrating in 2001 for economic reasons.

With the Spanish population rates declining as they are(there are several threads here that attest to this)it will be the immigrant workers who will save the standard of living. As a matter of fact, there are many Spanish communities that actively seek out immigrants to come and work the tomato and olive fields,often paying their tickets to Spain, because of the lack of Spanish people there.

Three: it is incorrect to equate immigration with criminality. There are people that are criminals, who happen to be immigrants and there are people who are criminals that are not immigrants. Immigration does not equal criminality! Crime in Spain is committed by all types of people including immigrants, but not exclusively by immigrants. The Interpol crime statistics can attest to that. There is no causality between being an immigrant and commiting a crime!