What we’re calling for:
- Regularise migrants
- Make public housing, welfare, education, health care, legal aid, employment, right to residence and a clean environment accessible to everyone, regardless of immigration status
- Invest in resources, and support services for migrant communities
- Repurpose empty buildings, houses, apartments, and hotels to house people experiencing homelessness
- Reverse the wave of privatisation and dismantling of public services that has come with neoliberalism and austerity politics
- Re-allocate state and EU funding towards healthcare, education, childcare, community centres and services, trauma and mental health support, and services for survivors of abuse and violence
Context
There is a precedent for regularising migrants which shows that governments are making a choice by refusing to do so. Between 1996-2008, 24 of the 27 European states regularised migrants. But this regularisation is often driven by economic, trade or political motives and the fact that the European economy is dependent on precarious, unregulated and migrant labour. Europe’s border policies cannot be separated from its neoliberal project and the years of austerity politics and privatisation.
Everyone should have access to public housing, welfare, education, healthcare, legal aid, employment and a clean environment.
Noone is illegal.
Research and resources
- Evolution of regularisation in Europe: an interactive map by porCausa. An explainer focused on regularisation in Spain is also available here.