News: The leader of the PP in Badalona promises “firm hand” with immigrants

Protected by Alicia Sánchez Camacho, Xavier García Albiol follows with her idea of restricting “social benefits” for Roma gypsies.

The president of the PP in Badalona, Xavier García Albiol, returns to the fray with the topic of immigration. In a event Tuesday night, the leader of the conservatives in Badalona promised a “firm hand,” “police pressure,” and “restriction of social benefits” to Roma gypsies and illegal immigrants, who in his opinion have come to commit crime and have turned Badalona into a “powder keg.”

The conservative leader delivered this forceful message in his announcement as a candidate for mayor of Badalona, a city which the PP believes to have real possibilities of governing after the municipal elections on May 22.

The Catalonian leader of the PP, Alícia Sánchez Camacho, protected García Albiol in the rally. Along with him, 400 people met in the main theater of Badalona, and although Sánchez Camacho did not specifically refer to immigration, she did praise García Albiol’s “courage” for “speaking clearly.”

“In Badalona we have a very serious problem with lack of public spirit and insecurity and many of these problems are created partly by the immigration which has come to our city,” stated Albiol, who then continued to emphasize that the “great majority” of immigrants are “honest” people.

In a speech which contributed nothing new, Albiol made clear his preferences for Latino immigrants over that of members of the Muslim religion, and added: “I would bet integration policies, but I wouldn’t put a single euro on those who do not integrate themselves,” and concluded that this is the case of certain “Roma gypsy individuals.”

Cheered on by those in attendance, García Albiol described Badalona as a city with thirteen neighborhoods at risk of “social exclusion,” behind the rest of the metropolitan area in education, where robberies are common and there are “serious problems with coexistence and insecurity.”

The conservative candidate, whose comments regarding immigration have generated numerous controversies during recent years, alleged against immigrants “who have come to make life impossible for their neighbors, to commit crimes and to take advantage of our social benefits system.”

He remarked that, if elected mayor, he will not allow this, and will give “priority access” for “non-basic” social services to the citizens of Badalona over people there illegally.

“I cannot permit any citizen to be without a social benefit which isgiven to an illegal immigrant,” he declared among applause from the attendees, while criticizing the socialist government of the city for, in a time of serious crisis, conceding 200,00 euros of benefits to “associations of Morocco and other countries” instead of giving them to food allowances for residents.

Sánchez Camacho: “Society is fed up.”

For her part, Sánchez Camacho demanded that politicians “speak clearly.” “Saying what we are thinking could cost us a number of upset Catalonians, but society is fed up with leaders who hide when things go badly,” added the president of the PP in Catalonia.

She also predicted that García Albiol as well as Alberto Fernández Días, candidate for mayor of Barcelona, also present at the event, will be “decisive leaders” to confront the obstacles for the future of Barcelona and Badalona, the third largest city in population.

The event was attended by the leadership of the party in Catalonia, but also by representatives of civil society in the city, among them president of the DKV Joventut, Jordi Villacampa.

Albiol also pointed out the presence of representatives from a gypsy organization from the district of Sant Roc, who supported him in the face of the “political and media lynching” he suffered for comments about the problems caused by immigration in Badalona.

Published 2.3.2011