Spain to legalise immigrants with jobs

The Spanish government wants to legalise unregistered immigrants by giving them jobs as part of its wider strategy of tackling illegal immigration, El Pais newspaper reported yesterday.

The new Socialist government is promoting orderly immigration linked to the job market at a time of year when the influx of illegal immigrants is at its peak.

Immigration Secretary Consuelo Rumi told the daily she wanted to legalise immigrants left in limbo by the previous conservative government. She says they were neither made legal nor deported.

"We will also legalise foreigners who report employers who take advantage of their precarious situation," Ms Rumi said. Spain receives around 23 per cent of Europe's illegal immigrants, she said, and authorities arrested 8,079 from January 1 to August 17 this year compared to 8,590 in the same period of 2003.

Many more make it through and find jobs in the greenhouses of southern Spain that produce much of Europe's fruit and vegetables.

Still others die trying. Officials reported six drowned on Saturday, including four who died at the same beach in the Canary Islands where 33 perished a week earlier. One immigrant group says 4,000 have drowned trying to reach Spain since 1997.

Last week, police in Sierra Leone intercepted 500 African migrants set to board an unseaworthy ship heading for Spain's Canary Islands.

The smugglers planned to sink the ship intentionally as it approached Spanish waters because maritime law grants shipwrecked passengers protection from deportation, officials said.

To prevent a potential catastrophe, Defence Minister Jose Bono has ordered the Spanish navy not to intercept ships loaded with immigrants, newspaper El Mundo reported yesterday.

Should the navy encounter such a vessel, it must consult with the government before acting, El Mundo said.