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Minister claims 25 percent fewer immigrant arrivals in 2008
By h.b. - Jan 13, 2009 - 7:29 AM

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Spanish Minister for the Interior, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, said immigrant arrivals on Spain's costas were down 25% in 2008 at 13,424.

The latest census, according to the National Statistics Institute, INE, reveals that there are 945,000 paperless immigrants in Spain. That number comes by taking the 5.22 million immigrants on the padron lists across the country and subtracting the 4.27 million residency permissions.

The Minister for the Interior, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, says that last year 46,626 foreigners were expelled from the country and that now ‘almost nobody’ arrives without the government knowing about them. He said that over the past five years the Socialist Government had repatriated 416,453 and claimed, despite the INE data that there are no more than 300,000 paperless immigrants in Spain.

The Minister said that the number of immigrants to arrive here illegally in 2008 along Spain’s costas was down 25.6% compared to 2007, at 13,424. The total number of immigrants intercepted on arrival by sea, air or land over last year was 37,000.