Migrants navigate complicated documentation and long queues to regularise their status under decree expected to benefit at least 500,000 people
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few minutes’ walk from Calle Ponzano, where many madrileños go to drink, graze and chat into the early hours, a more sober ritual is playing out in the austere surroundings of the offices of Madrid’s regional transport consortium.
Every few minutes, individuals or couples emerge from its doors into the bright spring sunshine. The unlucky ones leave with a frown; the lucky ones with a document confirming their use of public transport through a trackable, top-up travel card.
Humdrum as it may seem, the certificate is one of the documents that allows undocumented migrants to prove prior residence in Spain and regularise their status under a new government decree that is set to benefit at least 500,000 people.
