Migrants’ access to basic services in Spain: perspectives from the front line

Over the last years, cross-border migration has gained significant attention in policy discourse in numerous European countries, including Spain. While there exists some literature describing the influence of migrants’ legal status on their access to main basic services and exploring migrants’ perceptions of service utilization, there is little evidence on service providers’ perceptions and attitudes towards migrant users, which is key to understand the quality of care provided. Based on the analysis of 31 semi-structured interviews conducted in two different cities of the Community of Madrid –Madrid and Alcorcón-, our work aims to investigate attitudes of frontline workers from the main services (housing, healthcare, social services, education and employment) in managing care and assistance for immigrants with different backgrounds. Following the Grounded Theory approach, our results show that professionals’ beliefs and perceptions concerning different minority groups may result in lower/higher barriers to accessing these services. According to our data, these perceptions are mainly influenced by language barriers, prejudices and cultural beliefs towards each community. In general, most professionals consider it is easier to work with Latin Americans and Romanians rather than other groups due to their language proficiency and cultural proximity. On the contrary, these workers identify deeper obstacles in assisting Moroccans and Chinese population mainly because of the cultural distance perceived. In the specific case of Moroccan women, some professionals consider Muslim religion as the major obstacle to supporting them. Our findings emphasizes the need to provide training courses on interculturality and diversity management for professionals who daily work with immigrant population, also creating spaces to ensure best practices, share experiences, and build a climate of trust among service providers and the communities served.