Less than 40,000 Moroccan 'undocumented' immigrants applied for regularization in Spain

Only 38,968 undocumented Moroccans have applied for the regularization of their situation in Spain, compared to the expected 100,000 at the beginning of the process, announced, in Madrid Thursday, Spanish Minister of Work and Social Affairs, Jesus Caldera.

Since Spanish authorities launched the regularization process, only 313,000 so-called undocumented from different nationalities filed their applications in comparison with an estimated 800,000 at the beginning of the most important regularization process in the history of Spain.

Ecuadorians are on the top of the list with 86,916, followed by Romanians (42,629), Moroccans (38,968), Bolivians (14,484), Bulgarians (11,903), Argentineans (10,105), Ukrainians (9,512), Uruguayans (5,035), Pakistanis (4,961) and Chinese (3,600).

The Minister of Work said the Spanish authorities are studying to render more flexible the conditions stipulated by the provision of the Law on Foreigners, in particular the need to present a residence certificate issued by a municipality.

Last week, undocumented immigrants in Spain stepped up protest against the stringent requirements of the government regularization process.

Spain's government, which launched, in February 7, a three-month long process of regularization of undocumented immigrants, requires the submission of a residence certificate and a work contract to be eligible to regularization.