Information for citizens about waiting times to become legal

Spain is currently a destination of migratory flows. Since 1985, when the first immigration law was created, to the time of the current Organic Law 4/2000, successive legal reforms have continued to be very restrictive in terms of rights and liberties. One of these reforms was carried out in 2004 by the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE) and consisted of an extraordinary process of regularisation, which 691,655 foreigners took advantage of.
In 2006, 9.9% of Spain’s inhabitants were foreigners. The rise in the immigrant population has brought about economic growth; it has improved individual wealth; it has given greater flexibility to the labour market; it has reduced structural unemployment; it has maintained population levels and contributed to the surplus in the public coffers (according to a report from the Spanish government’s Office of Economics). Although the media have been reporting these benefits for many years, and in spite of the good intentions to improve their lot, the processes immigrants are subjected to in order to regularise their situation continues to be just as unpredictable, protracted and confusing; they have to join to long queues outdoors, in subhuman conditions that are an affront to their dignity.
In response to this situation, we created an information campaign that exposed the problem “close up”, while highlighting the hypocrisy of the authorities towards this community. The campaign was publicised on illuminated advertising panels on the Barcelona metro, thereby creating a dialectic between the different conditions and situations people have to wait under.