The municipal leadership of València has strongly criticized the migrant regularization process, which began its in-person services this Monday. According to the leadership, the Central Government "has dumped on municipalities a number of people who wander without information" and without "properly understanding" the procedure, which has led to a chaotic situation.
Furthermore, the leadership has denounced that "there are some city councils, curiously socialist ones," that are "referring people to València because they say they don't do special registrations there." This situation was made public after the presentation of the Neighborhood Police training course, in a context where offices of Correos, Social Security, and Immigration have begun assisting migrants with the extraordinary regularization approved by the government.
“"Something so important and so transcendental for many people should have been done differently."
The leadership explained that last Friday afternoon, once the regularization process was launched, the Secretary of State sent a recommendation from the FEMP (Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces) for the València City Council to collaborate. Since early Monday, the Valencian consistory has contacted city councils in other major cities, such as Madrid, Seville, and Zaragoza, and "they are all collapsed."
The leadership lamented that the Government has delegated "the entire regularization process without prior information, without prior training, without help" to the city councils, which it considers "an outrage." It also criticized that city councils receive "on-account payments corresponding to 2023 without updating the contribution in state taxes," while "autonomous financing is discussed and local financing is never addressed."
The Central Government has been urged to "verify that all municipalities in Spain are working and carrying out special registrations," as people are arriving in València from city councils that are not doing them. The leadership warned that "collaboration must be with everyone. And if not, someone is not doing their job," reminding that all municipalities have a registry office and social services to carry out special registrations and vulnerability reports.
Finally, it was demanded that the Government representatives in València "start doing their job and analyze whether there are city councils that are not doing special registrations." "Firefighter ideas" such as requiring a digital certificate when many migrants do not have a DNI were criticized. Regarding the reinforcement of municipal social services, it was assured that "everything" possible would be done, but the "blockage is spectacular" due to the lack of planning and the vagueness of the Royal Decree.
