Spain, like so many other countries throughout the world, has its share of immigrants, legal and otherwise. The largest group is from Morocco though there are also many from Romania, Bulgaria, and South America, who have come to Spain in search of the (western) European dream. In addition, there are the more solvent immigrants from the UK, who come here, fleeing the cruel tyranny of their own weather.
Spain is the main gateway into Europe for irregular immigration from Africa, surpassing Italy, Greece, Cyprus, and Malta. Given Spain’s geography, it is not possible to build a huge high beautiful wall to keep people out. Nevertheless, the Mediterranean Sea does what it can. Like the wall along the border between the USA and Mexico, its effectiveness is relative. In the same way as many people from Mexico and Central America manage to cross the border into the USA, many thousands of North Africans successfully cross the Mediterranean each year. Some of these people are sent back to Africa, but many manage to stay.
Still, the Mediterranean, like the border patrols in Texas and California, has played a certain role in discouraging immigrants since it has buried over one thousand people in anonymous watery graves. The victims paid their life savings to human traffickers, who provided them with a seat in a Zodiac inflatable raft and little else. It is estimated that less than a quarter of the drowned have ever been found. Every so often an anonymous body or two wash up on the southern coast of Spain.
One of my sons, who now works as a pilot in Texas, was formerly a lieutenant in the Spanish Air Force. One of his jobs was to fly rescue missions over the Mediterranean, searching for boat people. However, it was never possible to find everyone because there were too many of these expeditions. And desperate people do not always wait for good weather, when there is a greater likelihood of being rescued.
Thanks to the coronavirus, however, Spain is no longer such an attractive place to visit, even for the very desperate. With a consolidated second place on the coronavirus blacklist, Spain has ceased to be an attractive travel destination, regardless of one’s level of foolhardiness. Even when migrants, who are sufficiently desperate to risk infection, arrive here, they find a country in a state of alarm. They cannot work because the economy is paralyzed. There are no jobs, not even disagreeable ones that nobody wants. They cannot go to a different town and search for greener pastures because no one can feely move around the country.
Recently the Spanish government has had a second epiphany. They have suddenly realized that the fruit and vegetable crops must be harvested, and that people are needed to work in the fields. In the past, this work has always been done by immigrants, legal or otherwise, because it is arduous backbreaking work, only apt for the desperate. It has now dawned on the government that migrant workers are necessary….but suddenly there are none.
The fruit producers have bitterly complained because they face economic ruin. They need seasonal workers who are willing and able to spend long hours picking strawberries, cherries, peaches, apricots, etc. but suddenly there are none. All of the workers have vanished.
For example, in Granada, 80% of the green asparagus crop will be lost if there is nobody to pick and pack the produce. Because of the coronavirus, Morocco has closed its borders to passenger traffic, and the (legal) workers, who had been previously contracted to pick strawberries in the Spanish region of Huelva, will not be arriving. Even though the contracts of 6,500 Moroccan workers already in Huelva have been prolonged, it is estimated that an additional 100,000 more workers will be needed for the spring harvest.
The lack of workers has to be dealt with in the next 15 days. After that, it will be too late. The price of fruit will skyrocket, and a necklace of fresh cherries will become more elegant than a diamond choker.
This situation has caused the president of Spain, his vice presidents, and the plethora of ministers in the cabinet to put on their thinking caps and brainstorm in an effort to find a solution for this problem. For the past week, the brainstorm has been more of a braindrizzle, but finally some ideas have surfaced.
One measure that was approved yesterday is to give this seasonal work to the unemployed, who have lost their jobs because of the current economic slowdown. These unemployed workers must live in the same district as the fruit farm because mobility is still limited. Unfortunately this initiative has little or no chance of success.
In their desperation, enterprising fruit farmers have already tried to recruit people from the unemployment bureau. In a recent interview, one of the farmers said that his new employees had not lasted for very long. It took them only a few days to realize that picking fruit was a harder job than working in a shop, restaurant or hotel. They finally preferred to take their chances with the unemployment subsidies, hoping by the time that the money ran out, the economic situation in the country would have improved. And they left. Perhaps they were not sufficiently desperate.
The second measure is to prolong the contracts of those immigrants who are already in Spain. This measure would be promising if it were not for the fact that there are not enough seasonal workers already here to meet the current demand.
The third and final measure is give temporary work permits to the young (illegal) immigrants (18-21 years old), who are already in Spain, but who are lying low somewhere, hoping to ride out the coronavirus storm. The only way to entice them out of the woodwork is to promise them the possibility of working legally. That way Spain and Europe will finally have fresh produce and the migrant workers will have their European dream become reality, at least for a limited time period. After the harvest has ended, what will happen to them then? Only the Shadow knows.
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