A newly-approved European Union (EU) law against illegal immigrants will not affect the 500,000 Ecuadorians already living in Spain, Spanish Minister for Ibero-America Trinidad Jimenez said Thursday.
"There will not be changes that will affect the Ecuadorian community in our country," Jimenez said during a visit to the Andean country, according to a press release on the website of Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa.
Spain will not take expulsion actions against Ecuadorian immigrants, she said.
EU lawmakers approved a law Wednesday under which immigrants living in the EU who don't hold valid documents and refuse to be deported can be detained for up to 18 months and face a re-entry ban of up to five years.
Correa was the first Latin American leader to react to the rules, which will affect three million migrants from the Andean Community of Nations, comprising Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. The so-called "Return Directive" represents "true shame" for Europe, Correa said.
During a meeting with Correa Thursday, Jimenez said that Ecuadorian immigrants living in Spain "contributed to the development" of Spain.
Spaniards are pleased that the Ecuadorian immigrants have chosen her country to live in, she said,
"What the European Parliament has wanted to approve is a common legal framework and within that framework there is an application framework," she explained.
The law does not seek to persecute the immigrants, but to regularize their entrance and their integration into the cultural tradition of Europe as well as to protect them from falling into the hands of mafia networks, she said.
"The Ecuadorians living in our country should have no fear," she said.
Source:Xinhua
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