Foreign immigrants in Spain. The right to mobility and the assimilation conflict: great expectations vs tough reality

Abstract

Destiny of people is by great extend determined by the place one was born. Those born in wealthy democratic countries will have different opportunities from those born in poor or non-democratic countries. Therefore, equity reasons must lead us to accept the right to emigrate. Nevertheless, social groups politically organized can construct barriers against the mobility of population, with the final goal of defending their citizen's welfare, identity or cohesion. This tension between the right to search other horizons than those limited by birth and the limitations to do so —due to legal or social hindrance—, constitutes one of the most serious moral conflict at the time. In this paper I will deal with different questions related to the arrival of legal and illegal workers, the problems of assimilation and integration in the hosting society and the need to develop research programs to analyze the costs and benefits of foreign immigration in Spain.