PP prepares to play race card in upcoming Catalonia elections

The Popular Party is proposing to bring the immigration issue to center stage as the campaign kicks off for the regional race in Catalonia.

Alicia Sánchez Camacho, the PP candidate for regional premier, unveiled a proposal that would require all immigrants to sign a document promising to leave Spain if they become unemployed.

Her plan comes just days after PP leader Mariano Rajoy used Monday's executive committee meeting to discuss the results of the latest survey from the government-funded CIS research center, which shows that immigration is the third-largest concern among Spaniards after unemployment and the economy.

Speaking in Santa Coloma de Gramanet (Barcelona), which has a large immigrant population, Sánchez Camacho said that unemployed migrants contribute to the country's high jobless rate. The document she is proposing will also require migrants to pledge that they will accept Catalonia's customs and learn to speak the Catalan language.

"Those who want to work in Catalonia must promise to obey the laws of our country," she said.

Under the current foreign residents law, which the Socialist government has been enforcing, migrants who don't pay into the social security system at least six months a year must leave the country.

The so-called contract of integration that Sánchez Camacho is proposing is similar to one pushed by Rajoy in 2008 and is based on a controversial plan presented in France by President Nicolas Sarkozy.

The Catalan regional elections are scheduled for November 28.