1. "We have already signed amnesties
and agreements with neighbouring country and from now on,
unfortunately, illegal immigrants will have to leave the
country, because we cannot submit our community and police
to the increase in crime," said Menem. The presidential
declaration closed a week of debate on the link between
crime and the perception of insecurity of people living
in Argentinian towns and cities where undocumented foreigners
have settled. Discussion of the subject started following
the announcement of an official initiative to increase sanctions
on employers taking on illegal foreigners, encouraging denunciation
as a method via which to erradicate crime amongst the undocumented.
2. On other occasions, the government
had blamed the foreigners for unemployment. All surveys
state insecurity due to the increasing crime wave and unemployment
are the two main concerns of Argentinians One of every two
inhabitants of the city of Buenos Aires has suffered some
sort of crime in recent months, according to resarch by
the Sofres Ibope company, and 95 percent of people consulted
in the same survey stated they perceived a strong increase
in insecurity.
3. The debate was accompanied by
a series of police operations where dozens of foreigners
with expired residency permits were arrested after failing
to carry out the transactions necessary in order to remain
in the country. Police raids included the closure of unauthorised
canteens in an apartment building, the clientele of which
included immigrants paying 1.5 dollars for a plate of food.
These canteens were also staffed by immigrants. Consuls
from neighbouring countries explained in the majority of
cases the problem is that immigrants cannot find formal
employment and, hence, cannot present the papers needed
for a permanent visa.
4. National director of migrations,
Hugo Franco, said Wednesday the majority of crime in the
city of Buenos Aires is committed by illegal immigrants
from neighbouring countries and Peru. Franco's information
agreed with comments by the Interior Ministry and Federal
Police, claiming street crime is mainly carried out by Peruvian
citizens - something hotly disputed by the opposition. Most
immigrants from Latin American countries work in the worst-
paid more precarious jobs: domestic employment, in the case
of women, and construction and the textile industry for
men. Leaders of the opposition alliance considered the ruling
party was exaggerating the illegal immigration phenomenon
- in the same way as do the right wing of Germany and France
- blaming foreigners for all the country's ills. In Argentina,
unemployment stands at 13.4 percent of the economically
active population, and according to those questioned by
Sofres Ibope, this is one of the main causes of the increase
in crime in the urban zone around Buenos Aires.
5. Sociologist, Enrique Oteiza,
of the State and Society Studies Centre, claimed the government
is using immigrants as a "scapegoat" for the problems of
insecurity and unemployment. According to Oteiza, author
of the book "Immigration and Discrimination," half the Argentinian
population was made up of foreigners from Europe in the
twenties. "The proportion of immigrants has never been as
low as it is now," he said.
6. However, the public perceives
an increasing number of immigrants and above all of undocumented
individuals. The government calculates these number more
than a million, while Oteiza and opposition leaders say
there are no more than 100,000 or 200,000 such people.Most
of the immigrants come from Bolivia, Chile, Uruguay,Paraguay
and Peru, and, according to Oteiza, the society considers
them to be of a "lower calibre" than foreign residents coming
from Europe or the United States.
7. Some 99 percent of immigrants
enter the country on tourist visas, having to renovate this
by presenting a work certificate after the first three months.
And this is when they disappear into the grey area, for
many of them work informally or in temporary jobs where
no social security contributions are made. Governor of the
province of Buenos Aires, Eduardo Duhalde, had also blamed
undocumented foreigners for stealing - scarce - jobs from
Argentinians, an argument which finds fertile ground amongst
the marginal social sectors. "Charity rightfully begins
at home and if the situation becomes more difficult we must
think first of the Argentinians and then of the foreigners,"
said Duhalde, the leading presidential precandidate of the
ruling Justicialist Party.
8. And the argument is backed in
journalistic media by people who write pejoratively of foreigners,
blaming them for crime and bad behaviour. The right of foreigners
to live in the country is guaranteed under the Argentinian
Constitution, but given the increase in crime and unemployment,
the presence of immigrants is used by the ruling party to
justify problems, said Oteiza.
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