Salt mayor bids to spice up debate on immigration with dilution plan

The town of Salt, in the Catalan province of Girona, has a population of 31,000 souls. Of these, 45 percent are immigrants, an unusually high rate unparalleled in nearby municipalities or indeed in Spain as a whole, where the average is 16 percent. That is why the mayor of Salt, Jaume Torramadé of the CiU Catalan nationalist bloc, has come up with what he terms "a philosophical reflection" to prevent a few towns from accumulating disproportionately higher immigrant rates.

"I will not go into which percentage is the ideal one," he told EL PAÍS. "But I do demand that correcting factors be introduced to avoid these densities in saturated municipalities. It's not about throwing anyone out; it's about implementing re-balancing policies."

Torramadé, who is back in the mayor's chair after defeating the PSC Catalan Socialists in local elections last May, says he already made some of these comments in 2004 and that the Socialists even included some of his measures in their own election platform, such as distributing migrant students among schools in towns with little or no immigration. "In Salt, subsidized private schools have a 30-to-35 percent immigrant student rate, and in public schools this figure reaches 60 percent or even 90 percent."

A city without immigration is not a real city, but Salt's percentages are not realistic, either, says the mayor. "One of the consequences is that young native couples try to register their children in other towns to have access to a different type of school. They leave Salt." Meanwhile, 80 percent of the native population is over 58 years old.

The mayor says that nearby towns that build industrial parks should also be forced to build public housing. "Now we find that our immigrant community lives in Salt but works elsewhere," while the cost of social policies falls to their place of residence.

A particularly controversial plan of his is to give precedence to native Catalans in applications for public housing in downtown Salt. "I can't hope to encourage Western-style butcher's shops to open here if there's going to be no customers," he says. Torramadé adds that this accumulation of new arrivals leads to a loss of Catalan cultural references. "Salt belongs to the people that live in it, but it cannot be different from all the other municipalities in Girona."

Reactions from other parties varied depending on their position on the political spectrum. Marta Llorens, spokeswoman for Unió, one half of the CiU grouping, avoided criticizing a fellow coalition member, but questioned the legal validity of some of Torramadé's ideas. "He is a responsible mayor who is trying to come up with proposals. Sometimes you can be on target, others not as much," she said. But Llorens admitted some of the mayor's proposals would make a "difficult fit" with current legislation.

PSC spokesman Miquel Iceta called Torramadé's ideas "populist and demagogic." Meanwhile, a spokesman for the conservative Popular Party, Enric Millo, agreed with the mayor of Salt, saying that "it is essential to control [migratory] flows and immigrant quotas."