Immigrants camp outside Foreigners´ Office

After queueing for hours, 300 immigrants were told to come back the next day at the Foreigners Office in Calle Tous i Moroto. The queues outside the office have been getting longer since it was announced earlier this week that greater flexibility would be introduced in the system for immigrants who have been in Spain since before January 23. The doors of the office opened at 9am yesterday and just 20 minutes later, all the numbered tickets for desks 1 and 2 (residency and work permits) had been given out. By 9.45am, the tickets for desk 4 (requests for papers and handing in of documents) were exhausted. An official then handed out tickets for desk 33 (community permits) and at 10.35am, it was announced that no more tickets would be issued. By then some 210 people had received one, but there were still 300 people waiting in line. Many of the people in the queue had camped outside the office all night to be sure of getting a ticket. And some people camped out just to get a place, which they then sold for 5'000 to 8'000 pesetas. The police had to move in on more than one occasion to prevent problems caused by people trying to jump the queue.