The delegate of the Spanish government celebrates the regularization process: "It dignifies thousands of people"

PalmaThe delegate of the Spanish government in the Balearic Islands, Alfonso Rodríguez, has defended the development of the extraordinary regularization process for foreigners and has accused the Government of disseminating a "false" narrative that criminalizes migrants.

In a press conference, the delegate explained that, once the first phase of application submission is completed, a three-month period is now opening to resolve the files and assured that more than 80% of the applications have been submitted online, which has facilitated processing. The final figure for the extraordinary regularization process for migrants was 27,041 applications submitted in Mallorca, 6,604 registered in Ibiza, and 2,005 submitted in Menorca, according to the government delegation in the Islands.

Rodríguez detailed this Friday that the Offices of Foreigners have the necessary personal means to process the files within the established deadline. The delegate of the Spanish government in the Balearic Islands contrasted the model of the central executive with that of the Government, stating that Pedro Sánchez is committed to "dignifying" the situation of people who already lived and worked in the State, allowing them to access labor and social rights and dismantling part of the underground economy.

In this regard, he accused the Government of adopting "extreme right-wing postulates" by holding migrants responsible for the saturation of public services. In this way, he rejected this "false" narrative from the right and stressed that it is up to the autonomous community to strengthen healthcare, education, and social services instead of seeking "excuses." "Those who acquire rights also acquire duties," asserted Rodríguez, who also defended that regularization will allow thousands of people to exercise their work with full rights and obligations.

Asked if he was surprised that there were finally around 35,000 applications for extraordinary regularization in the Balearic Islands, Rodríguez recalled that the approximately 10,800 arraignment files registered in the ordinary process did not allow for anticipating the final volume of applications in the extraordinary one. In this sense, and thanks to this new procedure from the central government, he emphasized the importance of being able to grant rights to more than 35,000 foreign individuals who have been living and working in the archipelago in an irregular situation and under pseudo-exploitation. For his part, the Secretary General of the Delegation, Rubén Castro, pointed out that the offices have already finished processing the ordinary arraignment files and will now focus on resolving those of this extraordinary process, for which they will have personnel reinforcements.