Spain’s Immigrants’ Integration Policy Strategy

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National Approach Model

Ajanaku, Akinwale Oluremilekun

International Migration and Ethnic Relations Bachelor 15 credits

Spring 2020

Word count: 12393

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Abstract

This paper analyzes the Spain’s immigrants’ integration policy with the aim to reveal Spain’s national approach model using path dependence as a theory to search for the consistent and stable constraining or motivating ideas that dictate the direction of Spain’s immigrants’ integration policy. This paper finds out that the public philosophy of Spain is premised on historical ties, the interest is motivated by shared culture and the problem definition is framed based on the country of origin of the immigrants. However, these ideas make Spain’s

immigrants’ policy to be restrictive or liberal to some group of immigrants depending on their country of origin. Immigrants from Third country nationals consisting of Latin- America, Andorra, the Philippines, Guinea Equatorial, Portugal and the Sephardic Jews who have had historical experience acquire Spanish Nationality faster than the other immigrants from third country nationals composed mainly of Morocco, Africa and Asia because of the way laws regulating immigrants acquisition of Spanish nationality is designed.

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Acknowledgement

To God, I must give thanks to, who has given me the wherewithal and the wisdom to embark on this course and has also been faithful to me in ensuring I finished it.

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1 Introduction

1.1 Research Problem

On the 6th_{of November 2015 came into vigor, the new immigrants’ policy in Spain (Felipe,}

2015). It is a policy that regulates the acquisition of Spanish citizenship by immigrants with legal residence. However, to be eligible to apply for the citizenship, immigrants must fulfill certain criteria. The requirements are; (a) Birth certificate of the applicant, duly translated and authenticated; (b) Criminal record of his/her country of origin translated and authenticated according to the existing international agreements; (c) Marriage certificate, if the applicant is married; (d) Payment of application fee; (e) Criminal record certificate from the Central Registry of Prisoners; (f) Certificate from the local governments demonstrating you have been residing in Spain for at least ten years. (g) Two diplomas from Cervantes institute, the first test is on constitutional and sociocultural knowledge (CCSE) and the second is test of knowledge in Spanish (DELE) (Gobierno De Espana, 2015). However, the diploma DELE was an accreditation sufficient to demonstrate competence in Spanish for any professional or academic endeavor for which equivalent level of competence was required in Spain. (Real Decreto 264/2008: 14695) cited in (Bruzos, et al., 2018, p. 426).

Perhaps with the additional requirements included in the new legislation i.e. the language and civil test and the payment of application fee, hereby makes Spain’s immigrants’ policy to be widely seen as an immigrant policy contending for the most restrictive citizenship policy award.

Also, considering the fact that in recent times, countries in the EU such as Austria, Netherland, France, Norway, and Denmark that clamored for or legislated restrictive immigrant policies were motivated by the emergence of right-wing political parties in their countries (Howard, 2009, p. 110). But Spain has been an exception, in that its immigrant policy of November 2015 was not motivated or influenced by the rise of right-wing political party. Thus, it is pertinent to investigate the motivation(s) behind its restrictive immigrant policy leaning of Spain for two reasons: (1) academical and (2) societal relevance. Academic relevance in the sense that it will provide an understanding on the nature of Spain’s

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immigrants’ policy. While societal relevance will show how the immigrants integration policy affects the immigrants in Spain.

Firstly, as mentioned from the above paragraph that Spain being a deviant among countries categorized with restrictive immigrant policy that its legislation was not compelled by right-wing political parties. Although, there are a number of scholarly articles and books dedicated to the Spain’s immigrant policy. However, much of the studies have dwelt on the

classification of Spain’s immigrant policy of being restrictive to certain category of

immigrants and liberal to some and coming up with a general verdict of it being restrictive to immigrants. Hence, finding the reasons underlying the continual restrictive path the

immigrant policy toes, this study will be just one of the tiniest additions to the knowledge of immigrant’s policy particularly Spain, coming from a beginner researcher.

Another relevance of this study is, it is an International Migration and Ethnic relations (IMER) related inquiry. Because it is an investigation on a legislation that its output has a direct bearing on the condition of immigrants acquiring citizenship of the host country. As it has been argued by scholars that Spain’s immigration legislation is restrictive. The restrictive nature of such policy has consequences. The evidence of the consequence is that after the introduction of the civic and language test: “In fact, one year after the law came into effect, only three people had obtained a Spanish passport by the established procedure” (Cervilla (2016) in Bruzos, et al., 2018 p.430) .Although, the quote referred to the Sephardic Jews who had acquired Spanish nationality through the new requirements to sit for civic integration and language test.

Moreover, the new requirements drew criticism from political groups and citizens’

organization such as ‘Defensor Del Pueblo’ claiming that the regulation would lead to social exclusion of those who are vulnerable owing to their lack of formal education to pass the two tests (Becerril, 2016). Arguing along the same line of thought is Goodman (2012), asserting that in restrictive citizenship policy regimes, where possibility to acquire nationality is already limited. Additional mandatory integration requirements will further impede the chance of obtaining nationality, widens the difference between citizens and immigrants, by discouraging naturalization (Goodman, 2012, p. 673). Furthermore, studies show that the inability of immigrants to acquire host country´s citizenship will create a set of people ‘second-class citizens’ that engenders the conditions for biases such as racism and xenophobia (Rubio, 2006, p. 491).

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In recent time, there has been an increase of number of immigrants from non-Latin America origins in Spain constituting majority of the immigrant population. According to Spain’s National Statistics Institute, the largest groups among Third World Nationals (TCN) as at 1st of January 2019 were the Moroccans with 714,239, Colombia 199,540, and China with 190,624. Out of those TCN, 16% had temporary residence, and 84% held permanent

residence (European Commission, 2019). Since Moroccan and Chinese immigrants constitute more than half of the 84% holding permanent status eligible for nationality, then around 40% will be affected by the legislation. As a result, Spain will have more immigrants living on its territory as second-class citizens because of the stricter requirements in applying for Spanish citizenship. Thus, this study concerns IMER because the policy output guides the immigrants to acquiring Spanish citizenship and attendant consequences on the immigrants who are less able to access nationality due to the stricter requirements.

Hence, the aim of this study is to investigate the reasons behind Spain’s immigrant policy strategy dating from 1990 to November 2015, using qualitative method of inquiry. As knowing the reasons will help in achieving greater insight why Spain adopts restrictive immigrant policy as a strategy in regulating how immigrants obtain its citizenship. However, the period of the legislation to study is chosen because of its relevance by revealing how the Spanish Nationality law was framed just before and after the mass arrival of the immigrants.

The operational research question this study sets in accomplishing the aim of the inquiry is.

(1) What is the public philosophy that motivates Spain´s immigrants’ integration policy strategy?

(2) What interest(s) is /are behind the Spain’s immigrant integration policy strategy? (3) (a) How does Spain define its TCN immigrants’ problem concerning nationality? (b)

what informed its decision to introduce immigrants’ integration policy of 6th

November 2015?

Answer to these research questions will reveal Spain’s immigrant integration strategy. As Mehta (2010) argues that the analysis of the synthesis of ideas such as public philosophy, interest and public definition of issues inform policy strategy of a nation (Mehta, 2010, p. 1).

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2 Literature Review

This chapter deals with the previous contributions on the research topic. First, it describes what naturalization entails, also, how different social actors and institutions use it to their benefits. Next, it will discuss the instrumental use of the nationality by different social actors. Then follows by discussion on the different views held by scholars on immigrant’s policy especially Spain. This chapter ends with the overall perspective about the Spain’s immigrants’ policy.

There are quite a number of scholars that have dealt extensively on the immigrant policies of host countries i.e. naturalization of immigrants in their host countries through legal means. Particularly, naturalization of legal long-term immigrants residing in Spain. Moreover, scholars use different criteria in designing instruments to determine the restrictiveness or expansiveness of immigrant policy various countries. By restrictive, it means that the requirements set for immigrants to qualify for the application of citizenship through naturalization that serve as obstacle for easy acquisition of nationality, while expansive or liberal means the requirements demanded from the immigrants are easy to fulfil in accessing nationality. In addition to the how stricter or lesser the requirements in applying for the naturalization to determine the nature of the immigrants’ policy, scholars also use ideological conception of nationhood to categorize the restrictive or expansive nature of nationality law. Fernandez (2019), shows the distinctions between liberal and restrictive country’s design of citizenship and argues that institutions that feature civic, pluralist and minimalist orientation in the conception of national community are viewed as liberal, whereas countries with ethnic, monist and maximalist conception of nationhood have restrictive institutional designs of citizenship (Fernández, 2019, p. 680). These explanations find credence in the Brubaker’s analysis of Germany and France using their different conceptions of nationhood to show how they influence their respective nationality laws. As mentioned in the introduction, some argue that Spain´s immigrant policy is restrictive. And in other instance, some distil in their

arguments how the policy is liberal to a certain category of immigrants and harsher to other set of immigrants. The following are the synopses of scholarly contributions on the research topic.

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There is a common understanding among scholars that acquisition of citizenship through naturalization is an important action towards integration (Finotelli, 2018, p. 2320). There are, however, instrumental purposes of immigrant policy to both the host country that confers nationality to its immigrants and to the immigrants that receive that award of citizenship. While on the one hand, the host country instrumental use are; (a) to encourage immigrants to support migrant´s exit in the time of economic crisis; (b) to favour some target groups as a strategy in nation building; (c) as a form of reward for the good behaviour of migrants within the state´s strategy or for the purposes of integration; (d) as a pull factor for highly qualified or general labour forces; (e) to attract foreign direct investment, namely the country of Malta uses this strategy by offering nationality to foreigners who buy properties; (f) to meet military demands. On the other hand, immigrants could use citizenship to¸(a) guarantee opportunity to social welfare benefit; (b) use it as an exit plan to economic uncertainty or to transit to other countries with better economic opportunities; (d) to travel in out of the countries without restrictions; (e) to guarantee stable residence regardless of being unemployed which is one of the requirement for renewal of residence in some EU countries; to assist in the invitation of family members i.e. parents from the immigrants home countries (Finotelli, 2018, p. 3). Thus, immigrant policy if well thought out could be both beneficial for the host country and the immigrants.

Finotelli, a scholar on citizenship opines that Spain’s immigrant policy is liberal contrary to the claim of restrictiveness held among scholars. She argues that if one considers the number of naturalization of immigrants in Spain between 2000 and 2009 that the number of

naturalized immigrants soared from 21,810 to 79,578. This increment in the number of naturalized immigrants she queried: “how can such an increasing trend be explained? Or does it operate regime less restrictive than is generally assumed?” (Finotelli, 2013, p. 243). She argues from the angle of the category of immigrant that had historical ties with Spain. This group, however, constitutes the majority of the total immigrants that applied for nationality between 2000 and 2009, that is, the South Americans, also, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea, Sephardic Jews, Portugal, Andorra, which requires two-year residence. Moreover, this group enjoys friendly treatment as a result of little effort demand in fulfilling the criteria for the application of Spain´s nationality. In addition, the acceptance of jus soli for the children of immigrants born in Spain, because the requirement is one-year residence to

acquire citizenship. The minimum requirement for the Refugees or asylum seekers or stateless person is five years. Based on the exceptions in the Spain´s immigrant policy, she is of the

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opinion that Spain´s legislation on immigrant is somewhat expansive (Finotelli, 2013, pp. 247-248).

A different opinion to that of Finotelli is held by Migration Integration Policy Index (MIPEX) (2015) and Howard (2009). In the 2015 report ranking the access to nationality by MIPEX, Spain was ranked with a score of 48 out of 60 points. That score, however, indicated Spain to have one of the worse paths to citizenship by using parameter such as ten years continuous residence in Spain, the non-acceptance of dual nationality, denunciation of country of origin of immigrant among other requirements to category of immigrants. Such requirements demanded by Spain legislation for immigrants to become citizens were considered high hurdles to access nationality (MIPEX, 2015). In the same vein, using a similar parameter as that of MIPEX was Howard’s Citizenship Policy Index (CPI) score to determine the

expansiveness or restrictiveness of EU-15 immigrant policy (Howard, 2009). The CPI placed Spain in the upper rung of countries ladder with restrictive citizenship policy (Howard, 2009, p. 31). Although, the years under study were different from that of MIPEX but same

conclusion was arrived at that Spain´s immigrant policy was restrictive.

Expanding on the restrictive and expansive concepts is the reconceptualization of categories of immigrant policy termed Membership Conditionality Structures (MCS). It is a qualitative framework that indicates the unique approach by which countries regulate the access to citizenship, permanent residency, social benefits eligibility and civic integration requirements i.e. language and country knowledge by Third Country Nationals (TCN). Baldi & Goodman (2015) apply MCS to evaluate and compare the policies of three countries namely, Britain, Germany and Spain. However, the analysis of MCS draws on the vital role factors such as path-dependence and political parties particularly the past immigrant membership structures bequeathed to the succeeding authorities combined with the way, arrangements and

motivations of party systems have influenced the design of their policies. Spain was chosen for the analysis using the MCS Framework for two reasons. Firstly, Spain along with Germany and Britain have been largest immigrant-receiving states in Europe in recent time. In the last two decades, Spain has experienced immigration from TCN unlike Germany and Britain who have had long history of receiving TCN immigrants in their territories. Secondly, Spain´s policy was regarded as new, undergoing “active construction” of MCS. Moreover, its policies especially immigrant policy is argued to be consistent and has been influenced by the ongoing pertinence of sub-national identity, past ties and diaspora centred citizenship regime. As a result, the MCS analysis for Spain illuminates why Spain’s immigrant policy gives

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preference for immigrants from the Latin Americans, Spanish emigrants descent and Sephardic Jews who could trace their ancestry background to Spain (Baldi, 2015, pp. 1153-65).

Additionally, the recent adoption of civic integration test has elicited different views. One of the views is that the insistence on Spanish as a language test is a decoy to subordinate other regional languages in Spanish territory such as Catalan, Euskadi, and Gallego. An opinion expressed by Bruzos et al. argue that examining the socio-political and historical setting of Spain, the introduction of requirement in Spanish language for potential citizens could be thought of as reinforcement of the demotion of other co-official languages (Bruzos, et al., 2018, p. 9452). Yet an alternative view claims that the aim for the introduction of the civic and Spanish language test was to do away with the subjective evaluation of applicants by the Spanish administrative staff in charge of interviewing the immigrants. Moreover, before the introduction of civic and language test, immigrants applying for Spanish nationality had to go for interview before a staff of local civil registry, the questions and the assessment were based on the staff discretion (Rincón, 2014). Thus, this explanation raises a question if, in fact, the new tests constitute a more restrictive turn or bring a consistent and formal way of testing applicants social integration.

Nonetheless, either the intention credited to the adoption of civic integration test by Spain was to subordinate other co-official languages or to formalize the civic and language test, an objective is certain to be behind the introduction. Actually, there is a claim that countries embrace similar policies such as cultural requirement for different reasons and for different outcomes (Goodman, 2014). Perhaps if one were to go by the definition of civic integration rendered by scholar on citizenship, hopefully one can get the motive behind the adoption of civic integration as a requirement to acquiring citizenship. According to Mouritsen and Jensen (2019) civic integration can be described as an “ideological” path to integration designed by state to the potential citizens with the aim of fostering good conduct and values and to get acquainted with democratic institutions of the host states (Mouritsen, et al., 2019, p. 601). The key word is the “ideology”. Civic and language tests are also seen as potent ideological tools that can be deployed strategically to exclude certain applicants on the ground of their

ethnolinguistic background (Turner, 2014, p. 334). The question is, what ideologically motive or ambition influence Spain’s immigrant’s policy formally introducing civic integration test?

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Thus, it can be gleaned that restrictive arguments from the scholars weighs heavily that Spain is restrictive towards the immigrants in accessing citizenship through naturalization by residence, despite being lenient to some categories of immigrants.

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3 Theoretical Framework

In this chapter I will make an overview of theories and concepts relevant to the inquiry of revealing Spain’s immigrant integration strategy. In the first section, I will attempt at

explaining what national model approach is and relate its use with path dependence. Also, its advantages and the disadvantages shall be highlighted. In the second section, I will describe what path dependence is and how it could be applied as a theoretical use in analysis

immigrant policy. Lastly, I will explain the concepts related to the analytical framework and operationalize the research questions.

3.1 National Model Approach

‘National Model Approach’, as a concept that focuses on the peculiarity of each country’s policy such as immigrant integration legislation. The aspect of immigrant integration policy that this national model approach this inquiry focuses on is the naturalization of TCN in Spain. When one mentions National model approach of immigrant integration policy, it simply refers to the consistent and coherent pattern of framing integration problem by the relationship between the institutions and the actors participating in the immigrant integration policy, the pattern of framing, however, is inspired by historical and institutional thinking. In putting it briefly, national models depict state orientated ways of viewing integration that could be based on the perception of national identity and historical understandings of the role of the state. For example, national model for Britain´s immigrant integration approach could be viewed as framed in race relations (Bleich, 2003), French´s color-blind republicanism model, German ethno-cultural (Brubaker, 1992), Netherland´s approach to immigrant integration policy is framed in terms of multiculturalism (Duyvendak, 2009). As a result, national model of immigrant integration policy presumes that policy tends to be durable and stable because of the perceptions that a particular model is not prone to alter so quickly and the model tend to develop a certain path-dependency (Scholten, 2012, p. 44).

The National model approach requires the narrowing and simplifying the description of cases to a chosen group of observable variables or indicators. Worth noting is that the adjective

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‘national’ in the national model approach of integration is consistently regarded as to the type of case categorized to be specific namely nation-states. Nevertheless, the peculiarities of the model, that is, variables or indicators namely ideas in terms of public philosophy, interests and problem definition and policy output, are a function of: (a) the inquiry i.e. the research question(s) and (b) the description of phenomenon and/or the explanatory purpose. For instance, national model might be thought of as a phenomenon premised on ideational or policy. While national ideational seeks to comprehend how such ideas influence policy output, ideas in this case, could be fairly separate ‘diagnose of problems, priorities and solutions’ concerning immigrant integration. Whereas the national policy aims at

understanding the effect of policy on the integration outcome, policy in this sense, represents the existing policies of immigrant integration contained in the national law (Jensen, 2019, p. 617). The former applies to this inquiry, as the intention of this inquiry is to explore the motivations i.e. ideas on which Spain’s immigrant policy are premised on. Bader (2007) advances that policies are shaped by normative ideas that political leaders more often choose ideas found to be compatible to legitimate policies that can be used to further actions they want to champion. An analytical concept such as national model approach that deals with each country having its own peculiar model is more rewarding than analytical model that tries to categorize under different descriptive types. Because categorizing under different types might not capture or serve the purpose of revealing the relevant features of the case under study (Bader, 2007, pp. 870-7). That is by no means that descriptive typology cannot be useful in analysis, it is indeed useful for comparing between countries immigration policies. The problem with typologies is that they tend to be categorized under wider concepts (Colier, et al., 2008, p. 153). Thus, treating ideational national model approach as relatively stable phenomenon consisting of particular ideas, then one can trace changes in policies and apply evidence or reasons for the continued relevance or the opposite of some specific manner of thinking about immigrant integration. The consistent particular manner of thinking about immigrant integration in making policy is called the nation’s strategy of immigrant integration policy. In this way, ‘path-dependency’ becomes the product of national model used in

revealing the strategy of nation’s immigrant integration policy (Jensen, 2019, p. 617).

The comparative advantages of using national model approach in this inquiry are thus: First, it helps in the simplification and narrowing down of highly complex and contested matter related to immigrant integration issues. For instance, since each country is presumed to have a unique consistent and coherent way of dealing with immigrant integration challenges, it

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becomes less cumbersome and easier by examining how the immigrant issue has been dealt with in the past. Hence, each path taken to resolve the immigrant policy is looked through to verify variables/indicators/factors considered to arrive at a solution to immigrants’ challenges. Secondly, it indicates not only the context of path-dependency but the manner in how political actors and or institutions constituted by the national states present the questions for which or how immigrants become a problem or a challenge to the political community. For example, each country has a pattern of how it has historically framed the question(s) of immigrant integration issue or challenges, some rather see immigrants as complementary in the effort of improving economy by boosting the labor pool to compensate for the decreasing labor force due to increasing aging population, while others see the immigrants as a challenge who are economic parasites that have come to take advantage of the welfare policy. In addition, the national model can also be used for international comparative inquiries to evaluate how various European countries converge or diverge on immigrant integration policy.

Furthermore, insights can be gained from country’s history of immigrant policy using national model as an ideal model when country is faced with a similar concerned by making reference to a particular immigrant integration such as naturalization (Scholten, 2012, p. 46).

Despite the strategy revealing capacity of national model approach, there are strong

arguments against its efficacy of explanation. Firstly, the claim of its inability to explain the internal difference and political disagreement, rather the models are alleged to present a depoliticized perception of the immigrant. Secondly, critics claim that national models lack dynamic theory in relation to how ideas affect policies. Thirdly, criticism of national model is that, it is devoid of explicit definition and operationalization (Bertossi, 2011, pp. 1562-3). Fourthly, the danger of when models influence the understanding and ideas about policies and that the models are (mis)construed as the precise reconstruction of the past policies instead of viewing them as models. Consequently, models are however seen as the cause of success or failure of a particular policy. Also, the national models are viewed to overly stressed the coherence and consistent policies and prone to excessively simplify policies (Duyvendak and Scholten, 2011; Bowen 2007; Bertossi and Duyvendak, 2009) (Duyvendak, 2009)

(Duyvendak, 2011) (J., 2007) (Bertossi, 2009).

However, the intention of this inquiry is not to provide response to the criticism of national models approach, but rather to use the advantages they have over other approaches to reveal the Spain’s immigrant integration strategy.

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3.2 Path Dependence

According to Pierson (2000), path dependence can generally be defined as the causal significance of previous steps in a series of related temporal events. It states that it is

impossible to have an insight of a specific social variable unless one understands the process that lead to the occurrence. That is, the path taken by the past sequence of events affects the outcome and trajectories of the subsequent events. Although, it might not necessarily influence the event to move in the same direction but it becomes more important because it generates reaction moving in other directions (Pierson, 2000, p. 250). Nonetheless, the recognition of the use of path-dependence to include both tracing an outcome back to a specific set of past events, and indicating how these events are themselves linked to the happenings that cannot provide explanations on the ground of existing past situations. Thus, theory therefore is indispensable for path dependence to be able to explain the link of an outcome to historical occurrence or the lack of trace of an outcome to the past situations. Path-dependence hereby features particularly past sequences in which certain event set into motion institutional patterns or events that have a decidedly characteristics (Mahoney, 2000, pp. 507-8).

Path dependency as an analytical framework aids in understanding how institutions nations arrive at a type or particular adoption of decision by examining past events to the see how they have causal influence on the present moment. It belongs to the body of knowledge of historical institutionalism which views institution as structural variables that consist of the order of ideas, interests, powers, and problem definitions. These are however fundamental to the legislation of public policies, meaning that ideas, interests, problem definitions and powers play vital roles in their structuring either by encouraging or constraining the social actors who are directly concerned in the legislation of public policies such as immigrant integration policy (Trouvé, et al., 2010, p. 4).

Path dependency builds on the basis that social actors and organizations are constituents of institutions and are in essence, organize and guide the conducts and activities of the

institutions to tread a particular path. Also, the conception of dependency in regards to the path trod emphasize the dynamism of the past that influences that once a path is adopted, it becomes difficult to go contrary to the adopted path. Because taking the exit option i.e. choosing a contrary path might generate costs namely, political credibility, public criticism, internal fragmentation, investment, learning coordination and anticipation. Therefore, it is the

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reason that public policies are usually not replaced but modified (ibid.). Since ideas, interests and problem definitions are part of the processes that have the potential to limit the policies under consideration by the political actors (Jensen, 2019, p. 626). Hence, it is valid to analyze Spain’s immigrant integration policy along philosophical ideas, interests, problem definitions and policy solution using path dependence.

3.3 Analytical Framework

Continuing from the last chapter, this research will look at the ideas as indicator, however such ideas consist of public philosophy, interests and problem definition that constrain Spain’s immigrants’ integration policy. Thus the following operationalized questions are posed to help in the quest to unveil the motivation behind Spain’s immigrant policy strategy.

What public philosophy informed Spain’s conception of citizenship from the year 1990 to 2015?

How has Spain always defined issues related to naturalization of immigrants in every change of immigrant policy from 1990 upward?

What interests have been the influence in the successive Spain’s immigrant’s policy?

3.31 What public philosophy informed Spain’s conception

of naturalization?

The intention of this query is to know the ideas that formed the basis of the conception of Spain’s nationhood. Ideas in this context mean the past beliefs and perceptions consisting of both individual and collective social actors in a political community (Béland, 2019, p. 4). In this instance, the ideas of Spain’s conception of nationhood namely to make known its public philosophy. By public philosophy, it means the widely accepted notions developed by the authorities about the objective of the government and public policy premised on the general belief of the political community (Mehta, 2010). For example, the belief that government is under obligation to ensure that for immigrants to be citizens of Germany they must be of German descents while France’s idea is state centered citizenship i.e. Republican doctrine (Brubaker, 1992, pp. 82-6). However, ideas qua public philosophy embedded in path

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dependency serve as useful tools that decision-makers practically and skillfully engage in to simplify complex information and strategically fulfill their political bias (Jensen, 2019, pp. 626-7). Possibly knowing the Spain’s public philosophy in relation to the conception of its citizenship might explain Spain’s preference of some immigrants’ categories among TCN over the others.

3.32 How has Spain defined issues related to the

naturalization of immigrants?

Sometimes, deliberations on the legislation of policies are as result of issues in the political community that require the attention of the government to deal with. For example,

considering the case of immigrant policy that borders on integration, and the government enacts an immigrant bill stipulating that certain group of immigrants must sit for civic and language test before applying for nationality. The issue may however be that those group of immigrants have been observed to acquire nationality and are unable to speak the language or not acquainted with the values of the political community of which they have acquired the nationality. Relating this example to this research, could be that how decision-makers have defined that certain set of immigrants among TCN acquiring Spanish nationality lack the desired requisites to hold Spanish citizenship. Or the decision-makers observe that the number of certain set of immigrants among the TCN acquiring Spanish nationality has increased and there is need to stem the increase. Note, these cited problem definitions are hypothetical, they are by no means definite. The intention is to show the possible ways at which decision makers could frame questions. Therefore, the question could be rephrased as what issues arose, and how have the decision-makers framed or defined them? In this circumstance when political actors are faced with immigrant issues, political actors could rely on path dependence to deal with the issues by recourse to the past of how the similar issues were defined and dealt with. Political actors might appeal to the past because; (1) the issues might be complex and the political actors are deficient in creative ability to think of how to define the issues and (2) the issues need urgent attention i.e. political actors are constrained by time-pressure Schmidt (2010) in (Jensen, 2019, p. 627). Moreover, since path dependence is premised on how the pasts serve as national models in the framing of the subsequent and existing policies thus, path dependence offers an easy way to define the societal issues. Essentially, examining how decision-makers in the pasts framed the issues i.e. problems related to naturalization might show whether there have been similar issues and how they were defined.

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The third question is what recurring interests influence the successive Spain’s immigrant’s policy? While on one hand, ideas as discussed in the first question dwell on the common notions that have been existing from the past and are shared both by individual and collective social actors where they are made reflected in the policies by the government. On the other hand, Max Weber emphasize that it is not ideas but the interests that shapes the conduct of men. Also, it is argued that states use citizenship to achieve both tangible and intangible interests (Joppke, 2010, p. 15). In tangible interests, Brubaker claims that citizenship shields wealthy states from the indigent migrants. While the intangible, Brubaker argues that states’ interests are based on cultural idioms i.e. what the state understands by nationhood cum national identity as these form the basis of drafting of nationality laws in Germany and France (Brubaker, 1992, p. 182). Although, there was a contestation that French nationality laws were based on cultural idioms interests instead the interests were strategic and were

influenced by demographic and military need (Joppke, 2010, p. 18). Moreover, interests can explain why national laws stipulate different criteria to different group of immigrants. Hence, the influence of interests in shaping policies cannot be overlooked, as such finding the often occurring interests that shape the past Spain’s immigrants integration policies through looking past policies could furnish this inquiry the prevailing interests that Spain’s immigrant

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4 Method

This chapter deals with method that will be used for this research. In the first section contains an explanation of what documentary method is. While the second section highlight the strengths and weaknesses of documentary method.

4.1 Documentary Method

This study uses documentary method to unravel the motives that form Spain’s policy strategy. The importance of documentary method is underscored generally by; (a) documents are read as the natural formation of social practices i.e. on a daily and longer-term basis with the ability to tell something about a particular fact after organizing one’s understanding from several possibilities, documents also form part of specific reading texts of social events; (b) they inform about the plans of somethings to be achieved in regards to periods, places and social relationship on occasions in the pasts (May, 2011, pp. 191-2). Furthermore, like other methods, it helps in the understanding of social facts from the data sources by probing the evidence in ascertaining its veracity (Moses, 2012, p. 123).

To avoid ambiguity in the use of documentary method for this inquiry, as it be could be conflated to mean the use of films or videos. It is therefore necessary to define Documentary method in relations to the use of documents. Documents can be described in a wider sense as texts in written forms where the writing can be symbols standing for words that consist the deployment of any of the followings pen, pencil, printing machine or other tool for the inscriptions of messages on paper, parchment or other material means. Also, in modern times with the founding of magnetic and the means of storing and showing texts electronically enable ‘files’ and ‘documents’ in computers and word processors to be regarded as real documents. With this description, documents refer to physically represented texts, where the text contents are basically for the physical means Scott (1990) in (May, 2011, pp. 194-5). Additionally, documents can be words or images recorded without the influence of the researcher as occurring in interview or focus group (Silverman, 2014, p. 276). Sources of documents can be past documents namely, statutes, statistics, laws, declarations people’s

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renditions of incidents that they were in fact involved. Documents are classified into three main group i.e. primary, secondary and tertiary documents. Primary documents are materials that are expressed in writing, printed, videoed or collected by those who really have firsthand experience of the events which they describe. Primary documents are argued to give more representation of accounts of happenings in relation to the authors’ time and their nearness to the events. The second classification is secondary documents which are materials that contain the account of events expressed in writing, printed, videoed or collected after the events meaning that the authors had not directly witnessed the events. While the third classification is tertiary source documents and can be defined in terms of their use. They allow the location of references such as, indexes, abstracts and other bibliographies (May, 2011, p. 196).

However, the interpretation of documents lends itself to different social world views (May, 2011, p. 199). One of the paradigms holds that documents cannot speak for themselves that voices must be given to them by the analysts (Silverman, 2014, p. 277). While in another world view, that is, for some investigators, documents stand for the representation of reality. They become means by which inquirer examine the link between their descriptions and the events to which they refer to. In effect, the reading or understanding of documents detached from the method to achieve this indicates that social facts exist independently of

interpretation. This inquiry finds common ground with the latter world view about documents that they are neutral materials which independently inform about social reality (May, 2011, pp. 198-200).

Essentially, using documentary design to achieve the aim of this inquiry, it is relevant to ensure that the documents employed for the inquiry consist quality evidence. Scott (1990) suggests four criteria to evaluate the evidence accessible from documentary sources. First, authenticity is important to this kind of research, to judge the authenticity of documents, one examines the documents; (a) if there are obvious errors or if they have inconsistent

representations; (b) if varied versions of similar documents are available; (c) if the styles, contents, handwriting etc. are not consistent; (d) if the documents have passed through the hands of multiple copyists; (e) if the documents have been handled with person(s) with vested interest in a specific reading of the of their contents; (f) if the versions originate from

suspicious secondary source; (g) if the authorship can be validated. These lists are by no means exhaustive but following the list mentioned can guarantee the authenticity of the documents. Secondly, credibility can be described as the degree to which evidences are unaltered, honest, devoid of errors and evasion. This involves checking the reliability of

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people who recorded the translations of the information received. Also, checking on the accuracy of their observations and records. To ascertain the credibility following these processes, one will have to check on the life and political leanings of the authors of the documents. Thirdly, representativeness which refers to how relevant the documents are to the inquiry, it is an important consideration which allows the researcher to draw conclusions from with the objective to argue that there are typical documents representing the subject of

inquiry. Lastly, the document’s meaning, it involves the clear and understanding of the documents by the analyst. It dwells on what the documents are and what they do convey to the researcher and the audience of the text. In essence, to understand the significance of the documents by the researcher, attention should be given to the intention of the author(s) of the documents when they were produced, the meaning adduced to the documents by the target audience also the analyst who by virtue of reading forms part of the audience and the contents themselves analyzed by the researcher. These components of the meaning are viewed as observations. Hence, meanings from documents can be understood if one knows the genre they belong to Scott (1990) in (May, 2011, pp. 206-8).

Having discussed the criteria expected of documents to be used as source in a research, it is pertinent to mention the materials this research will use to reveal the Spain’s immigrant’s integration policy strategy. These materials are from primary and secondary sources. The primary sources materials are the past immigrants’ legislations such as statute document; 18/1990, 15/1993, 29/1995, 10/1995, 36/2002, 12/2015, 1004/2015 that dwelled on

nationality laws and some documents such as Ministry of Justice Department leading sourced from Spain’s official websites. Using these primary sources will provide direct information of the past happenings and experiences thereby eliminating forgeries and falsification Ranke (1956) in (Moses, 2012, p. 122). Furthermore, reasons and intentions why the policy were enacted. As secondary sources, this research deploys the use of textbooks that treated citizenships, academic journals, editorial newspapers that contributed through academic arguments on the events. The use of secondary sources help in; (a) providing chronological chain of events as they unfolded; (b) mapping out the field of research in discovering what had been recorded; (c) identify which questions were raised and how they were attended to (Moses, Ibid) (d) to use as guides at the beginning of the research to get a general hint of what had happened Tuchman (1981) in (Moses, 2012, p. 125).

Using the documentary method in this inquiry and conducting path dependence analysis on the materials such as the past legislations from 1990 to 2015. As discussed previously that the

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integration policy will be examined to single out the intentions and the reasons that motivated the variations or replacements in the immigrant integration policies. Thus, in this research, the documents represent the events and will be analyzed alongside intended meanings using path dependence to reveal the national model approach of Spain’s immigrant integration strategy. The purpose is to check whether there had been a consistent approach in the understanding of the meanings of immigrants related issues particularly naturalization of immigrants from the TCN. Also, to see if there were consistent evidences of constraining or motivating factors in the understanding of immigrants acquiring its nationality that finally what led Spain to adopt restrictive stance towards a set of immigrants from TCN.

4.2 Strengths and Weaknesses of documentary method

Aside that documents contain the compilations of the formation of the social events with the ability to inform and organize decisions that people make every day and on longer term basis. However, the use of primary source documents such as legislations, committee proceedings for this research has advantage over other methods because they provide firsthand materials for the analysis of the research and can reveal how events were structured and the reasons adduced in the production of the immigrant legislations (Silverman, 2014, p.276 & May, 2011, p.191). Another strength is the way researchers approach documents by using at least four criteria suggested by Scott (1990) namely, credibility, representativeness, meaning and authenticity. The intention of approaching the documents deploying the criteria is to use reliable materials for the research. Additional advantage is that sourcing of documents for research nowadays has become relatively easier and cheaper than other source of collection of data because documents can be sourced from official websites through the internet.

Nevertheless, documentary method has been criticized from the way it is being employed particularly how researchers use documents in their analysis. Analysis in documentary method is said to be prone to bias and selectivity. That researchers select documents to use in the understanding of events or that the documents in themselves could be products of

selectiveness, that is, what people consider as relevant to be recorded and the discarding of what they think to be irrelevant which can be influenced by decisions connected to any or combination of social, political and economic environment of which they are members (May, 2011, p. 215). However, nearly all the primary documents used in this research are in Spanish, thus, the use of google translator is unavoidable. This, in my estimation is a great

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4.3 Researchers role in the research

This researcher is aware of vulnerability to bias that can influence the inquiry. As a researcher with a third country national background conducting a finding related to third country

national. My positionality obviously makes me to be prone to a certain bias. Since this is purely academic, I shall conduct and present my findings transparently devoid of bias.

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5 Analysis

The analysis employed here concentrates on the nationality policy i.e. Spain’s immigrant’s integration policy grounded on path dependency analysis to establish Spain’s national model of nationality strategy. The analysis has three sections starting with the ideas of Spain’s conception of nationhood, then the traditions of decision-makers definition of issues related to naturalization of TCN immigrants. Following the traditional ways at which decision-makers formulates immigrants’ problems are the interests the state considers in shaping its nationality laws and lastly, the solutions proffered to the issues raised concerning TCN immigrants. Moreover, the analysis, shall focus on the legislations on nationality from 1990 upward.

5.1 Public philosophy as conception of naturalization

Ideas in ontological description is what all the state stand for (Wincott, 2010, p. 2). Ideas are also viewed by political scientists and sociologists to play significant role in policy making. In fact, to underscore the role of idea, is the notion that ‘ideas matter’ as most people habitually agree to participate and think on everyday social and political life. Mehta (2010) claims that ideas matter when they influence people’s way of doing things and cannot be abridged to other non-ideational force. For example, the adoption of a particular religion, the decision to be a member of political party, the choice to study specific course, policy choice, and path dependency are all premised on ideas. Ideas can however function as public philosophies or zeitgeist. As public philosophies, they reveal the purpose of the government or government’s public policies based on some set of assumptions. Immigrants from the South American countries integrate effortlessly in Spain is an example of public philosophy. Closely related to public philosophy is the zeitgeist, which denotes a certain set of broadly shared assumptions that are not open for contestation in a specific historical moment (Mehta, 2010, pp. 2-6). Taking together the ontological description of ideas, that ideas matter, the public philosophy and the zeitgeist then applying them in the context of Spain’s naturalization of TCN

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immigrants, it means the impregnable assumptions that broadly inform it’s decisions when it comes to the matter bordering on the naturalization of immigrants. Hence, it is safe to

examine the Spanish nationality law with an eye to find its public philosophy or zeitgeist from 1990 upward.

Recalling that this research is focused on the naturalization of immigrants from the third countries nationals, by this, it is dealing with those immigrants that can acquire citizenship through naturalization by virtue of their legal residence in Spain. However, the nationality law guiding their acquisitions of Spanish nationality contain different conditions of access to nationality to different set of TCN immigrants. For example, from 1990, the reform that was made on nationality law contained in the statute document 18/1990 of 17th December 1990 of the CC art. 22.1:

The granting of nationality by residence requires that one must have stayed ten years. Five years will be sufficient for those who have obtained asylum or refugee status, and two years in the case of nationals of origin from Ibero-American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea or Portugal or Sephardim (Carlos, 1990)

The above quote reinforced the general residence criteria of ten years continuous legal residence with no option to retain their home country citizenship, while the same article contains an abridged residence requirements for particular groups as mentioned in the quotation. Moreover, these set of immigrants have the options of not giving up their nationalities, that is, they are permitted to have dual nationalities (Carlos, 1990). The real reason for the content change was to make it easier for the naturalization of political refugees, strengthening of dual nationality and repossession of status. All immigrants from groups that enjoy abridged residence criteria except the asylum and the refugees were those that had shared histories.

Examining the reform of 23rd of December 1993, 2nd of November 1995, 23rd of November 1995 with statutes 15/1993, 29/1995, organic statute 10/1995 respectively, all had almost similar content changes that emphasized on the reacquisition of Spanish nationality by those Spaniards who went into exile, expatriates who emigrated out of Spain and had lost Spanish citizenship in the process except that of 23rd_{November 1995 art. 7 that dwelt on the removal}

of loss of nationality because of criminal offence (Carlos, 1995b). Nevertheless, for those children of emigrants, emigrants and those who went on exile to access nationality, they must be residents in Spain: “When the loss of Spanish has taken place regardless of the emigration phenomenon, the need remains for the interested party to be a legal resident in Spain” (Carlos,

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1995a). Again consideration is given to those who had acquired the nationality of other countries but who can trace their genealogies to Spain, thus the law afforded them easy passage to acquire Spanish citizenship.

In 2007, there was a suggestion canvassed by the civil society and the Catalonia regional parliament on the need for Spanish government to take into account of the growing presence of immigrant populations in its territory to reduce the general requirement from ten years to five years but this suggestion was not considered a priority (Marín, et al., 2015, p. 37). Rather, the focus had been on reacquisition of nationality and the reinforcement of duality of those it had historical ties with.

In 2014, there was a debate concerning nationality, which was a bill which sought

clarifications on the special circumstances needed for the Sephardic Jews to apply for Spanish nationality through discretionary measure by the government despite the already privileged criterion to acquire Spanish nationality of two-year resident permit. A year later, the bill was passed and became law 12/15 ( (Rajoy, 2015) : The decision to enact the nationality in law in favour of the Sephardi Jews was premised on a similar concession in Real Decree 20/1924:

Historically, Spanish nationality was also acquired under exceptional circumstances. An example of this was the Royal Decree of December 20, 1924, in which the explanations were alluded to former protégé or descendants of these and, in general, to individuals belonging to families of Spanish origin (Rajoy, 2015).

The statement above was from the King of Spain, Felipe the VI citing historical enactment to show a path to take when constructing immigrant integration law. The law 12/15 granted easy access to acquire Spanish nationality by the Sephardic Jews, all it required for the Sephardic Jews applicants was to prove their historical connections to Spain, the law also removed the provision of renunciation of any nationality held (Minder, 2015). Nonetheless, the Sephardic Jews were required to sit for civic and language tests. This shows another case dictated by path dependence influenced by historicity

Six months later, on the 6th of November 2015, Spain legislated an immigrant integration policy that requires that TCN immigrants other than the set of immigrants it had past ties with to sit for civic and language test. Also, the general condition of ten years of continuous legal residence and the renunciation of nationality held by TCN remain intact (Felipe, 2015). The continuous upholding of the ten years criterion for TCN immigrants other than those with historical ties could be viewed as being influenced by path dependence because those TCN immigrants including EU members are subject to 10 year requirement legal resident except

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immigrants of Portugal and Andorra origins who have historical ties with Spain (Rajoy, 2015).

From the foregoing instances one could observe a constant and consistent pattern in the purpose for the modification of immigrant laws from 1990 till the last known immigrant legislation i.e. 6th of November 2015. The consistent and stable pattern show the emphasis placed on the reacquisition and strengthening of dual nationality of certain TCN countries who had one way or the other had dealings with Spain in the past. Following the principle of path dependence which argues that the past steps dictate the steps of the present and the subsequent steps. Hence, path dependence played vital role in shaping Spanish nationality laws by looking at its past to decide the path to toe in its immigrant integration policy. Moreover, it is safe to assert that the zeitgeist or the public philosophy of Spain regarding immigrant integration policy is that historical ties count! That is, historical connection is the idea that inform Spain’s decision when it comes to the modification or legislation of new law that borders on immigrant policy. Thereby making its law liberal to some category of TCN immigrants such as Latin American and others and restrictive to other group of TCN immigrants namely Moroccans, Africans, and Asians.

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5.2 Interest Motivating Naturalization Policy

Conception of interest of a state can be described as the way the state evaluates options that will relatively benefit it more from array of courses of action. State interest is what it considers to have relative value and devise strategic conditions and ways of achieving the interest (Hay, 2010, p. 15). Hay (2009) argues that interests are of two derivations namely material and structurally derived interests. While the former helps in the simplifying of social and political development and is closed and determinate, the latter is a social conception open to ideological debates and is active, proactive and indeterminate (Hay, 2010, p. 7). The type relevant to this research is material interest because of its predictive nature i.e. closed and determinate. Interest however, is argued to matter when drawing policies such as economic, defence, educational or nationality policy, for example, France past nationality policy is argued to be militarily and demographic driven because of lower population it had (Joppke, 2010, p. 18). So, what interest(s) influence Spain in the drafting of its immigrant policy?

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Benitez De Lugo (1996) argues that from the 1950s, Spain has been having consistent signing of bilateral pacts with many of the Ibero-American countries based on the mutual

understanding of dormant and active nationality i.e. two nationalities could not be active simultaneously. The bilateral pacts came as results of historical dealings with the Ibero-American countries. In the bilateral pacts were exercise of rights, ceding of passports, diplomatic protection and the granting of civil and social rights (Benitez De Lugo, 1996, p. 222). More so, in the Spanish nationality law of 1889 art. 17.2 of the civil code; which was based on jus sanguinis that guaranteed the transfer of nationality from parents to their

offspring, even though, the children were given birth outside Spain. But in between 1889 and 1950, there were modifications in the Spanish nationality laws that made some of its

emigrants of Spanish origin who were residing in foreign countries especially Latin American countries to lose their Spanish nationalities. Since there were many Spaniards in Latin

American countries who had acquired citizenship of the host countries and still wanted to maintain Spanish nationality. Consequently, it became much of interest to Spain signing bilateral pacts with these countries and implicitly accepting dual citizens which would provide opportunity to establish links with its emigrants and their descendants (Moreno Fuentes, 2001, p. 126). In essence, the material interest of Spain for the signing of bilateral agreements was to make it possible for Spaniards who had lost Spanish nationality to establish link with Spain which made it invariably easier for those immigrants from countries it had bilateral pact with. In 1978, the dual nationality pact with Ibero-American countries and other countries that have had special connections with Spain was formalized and signed into law under the art. 11.3 of the Spanish law 1978 (Carlos, 1978). More importantly, this interest set a path for which Spanish government considers in drafting its subsequent immigrant policies as can be observed from the rationales given in the Spanish nationality laws from 1990. For example, law (18/1990 art. 26. 1a, b) reinforcement of dual nationality; reacquisition of nationality; acquisition of possession of status (Carlos, 1990). Ley 15/1993 extension of period of amnesty for the reacquisition of nationality (Carlos, 1993). The law (36/2002 art.24.1):

…the acquisition of the nationality of Ibero- American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea or Portugal is not enough to produce, according to this section, the loss of Spanish nationality of origin… (Carlos, 2002).

All other laws till 2002 follow the same rationales i.e. reacquisition and reinforcement of dual Spanish only with the purpose to maintain link with descendants of Spanish emigrants.

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Another interest that informs the path dependence of Spain’s immigrant policy is cultural affinity and the compensation for past errors. According to Rubio (2006), Spain considers immigrants from countries it has bilateral agreement with such as Latin American countries, Andorra, the Philippines, Equatorial Guinea and Portugal as members of a joint cultural community and recognises a certain historical debt. (Rubio, 2006, pp. 479-80). In stressing the interest with the past is a statement credited to the former ruler of Spain Francisco Franco, in the preamble of 1954 constitution he said Spain had a common ‘spiritual mission’ with countries in which “for well-known reasons that transcend all kinds of contingencies it is inextricably linked” (Lete Rio (1984) cited in Rubio, 2006, pp. 485). The historical nexus between Spain and its colonies engendered the shared culture. Following path dependence, shared culture was mentioned in the preamble of nationality law of 2015:

Sepharad’s children maintained a wealth of nostalgia immune to the evolution of languages and generations. As a support they kept ladino or Haketia, an original Spanish enriched with loans from the host languages… (Rajoy, 2015).

This shared culture can be argued to why Spain prefers countries it had historical link in forming a cultural community, that is, formation of people that share the same traditions, culture, and language. As Brubaker cited in Joppke (2010) argues that citizenship is not only a composition of state membership, rather “nation membership” that the political community should consist of cultural community and community of mores, languages, or belief (Joppke, 2010, p. 111). Following Brubaker’s argument, Spain’ interest in joint cultural community could be construed to establish a country based on the same identity that invariably inform the decision to prefer a set of TCN immigrants over the other because of the shared language, mores, or belief. The formation of cultural community could also be argued to be a factor for its immigrants’ integration policy to be expansive to immigrants of Latin Americans and other colonies and restrictive towards immigrants from Moroccans, Africans and Asia who apply for Spanish nationality based on residence.

In historical debt, this had to do with the colonisation, forceful expulsion of some immigrants, and some Spaniards who went on exile as a result of oppressive government i.e. Francisco Franco dictatorial regime. The cultural and historical debts considerations however reflected in the modified Spanish national law since (18/1990 art. 23 CC) and the same law article 24.1 CC. These laws provide for reduced time of residence to acquire nationality by naturalization and the acceptance of dual nationality. Also, a recent beneficiary of historical debt is the Sephardic Jews. The Sephardic Jews can access nationality provided they could establish their

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past link to Spain (Rajoy, 2015). The view of compensation of historical debt owed to the Sephardi’s by Spain was widely shared; “an act of historic reparation for a tragic and serious error” (Minder, 2015). Below is a statement acknowledging the historical wrong from the King of Spain law 12/2015 of June 2015:

In short, this law aims to be meeting point between the Spaniards of today and the descendants of those who were unjustly expelled from 1492, and is justified in the common determination to build together, in the face of intolerance of past times, a new space of coexistence and harmony, which reopens forever to the communities expelled from Spain the doors of their old country (Rajoy, 2015).

Hence, formation of cultural community, bilateral pact and historical compensation have been the material interests that influence Spain’s immigrant policy by connecting with the past.

Another instance to demonstrate interest premised on path dependence influence on Spain’s immigrants’ integration policy was a debate on the findings by Social Policy and

Empowerment Commission that had the support of socialist party and United Left i.e. Partido Socialista de Obrero (PSOE) and Izquierda Unida (IU). The report stated the worry that borders on the relegation of immigrants to second-class citizens that could make them

vulnerable to racism and xenophobia owing to their inability to acquire citizenship because of the long waiting period they would have to endure before applying for Spanish nationality. PSOE in line with the report argued for the revision of the law from ten years to five years with the argument that it would facilitate the immigrants’ access to Spanish nationality. IU also arguing in favour of the reduction of years from ten to five years, basing its argument on a comparative study of nationality laws applicable in different EU states. IU argued that five-year period was the dominant practised legislation in the EU and that five-five-years was sufficient for integration of immigrants in the host society. But in the end, the bill was jettisoned for lack of precedence of that type of legislation (Marín, et al., 2015, p. 14). Thus, this action of the parliament has again proved the path dependence that influence Spain’s immigrants´ policy because there was no material interest involved in the concerned TCN immigrants.

5.3 Nation’s definition of nationality problem

A problem definition of which is described as a specific manner of constructing a political and social event or situation as problematic that shows and reduces the complexity of the fact of the event or situation (Jensen, 2019, pp. 622-3). Spain’s problem definition of nationality varies according to the immigrants groups because the nationality law is not uniform to all

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immigrant groups. To those emigrants due to socio- economic and political situation that left Spain in 1930s, the problem definition was the lack of enabling law that could facilitate their integration through acquisition of Spanish nationality so as improve their well-being (Rubio, 2006, p. 490). To those it had historical links with namely Latin-America countries, the Philippines, etc. was the need to strengthen bilateral agreements to enjoy reciprocity gestures (Carlos, 1990). The Sephardi Jews was how to compensate for the past wrong done to their ancestors for their forceful exit (Rajoy, 2015). While the problem definition of the TCN immigrant was their inability to sufficiently integrate socially into the Spanish community and the slow process in the administrative handling of nationality of TCN immigrant group

(Felipe, 2015).

As one of the objectives of this research is to uncover the reason for the introduction of civic integration and language test required in the November 6th 2015 immigration policy that directly affect a set of TCN immigrant of Moroccans, African and Asians excluding

immigrants from the Latin American countries, and other groups with historical ties. Because the introduction of civic integration and language test generated wide reactions among the civil associations and the affected immigrants themselves (Becerril, 2016). In the Civil Code regulating the acquisition of nationality before the introduction of civic integration and

language test, the officials of the Dirección General de los Registros y Del Notoriado (DGRN) were authorized agency to conduct interview for immigrants aspiring for Spanish nationality. However, the interviews were conducted in an informal way, the questions posed to

applicants were based on the discretion of the staff of DGRN, such questions ranged from what kind of Spanish food the applicant liked, the kind of activities they engaged in with their children, to if the applicants had Spanish friends. As a result of the evaluations, some

immigrants’ applications were denied on the ground of insufficient knowledge of Spain’s history and lack of sufficient integration into Spanish society as alleged by the civil registrar officials interviewing immigrants. Consequently, there were a lot of court appeals by the immigrants seeking justice for the denial of their applications for Spanish national. The following are some of the court sentences related to language requirement (SAN 2143/2102, 14th May, SAN 2546/2012, 14thJune 2012, SAN 2827/2012, 13th June) indicating that proof of Spanish knowledge can be decided by other agencies of the government namely social

services, local authorities and police when mandated to do so by a judge or the DGRN (Marín, et al., 2015, p. 30). Such discretionary and inconsistent interpretations affecting application process was one of the reasons the government introduced the Civic integration

Spain’s Immigrants’ Integration Policy Strategy - National Approach Model