Foreigners are most affected by unemployment in Spain, their dreams were crushed during the growth of the current financial crisis, AFP comments in a report made in a suburb of Madrid where immigrants, among them Romanian, a quarter of the population.
At Torrejon de Ardoz, near Madrid, nothing is as before. This model was able to integrate suburban thousands of immigrants come to work in a full economic health in Spain. Currently, it is affected by unemployment and lost illusions, French Agency comment.

Three years ago, in this suburb located 30 minutes away by train from the capital, the bars were full and customers waiting in line in front offices to send the money transfer part of their family income.
Currently, most shops open are empty. The same telephone centers, African hairdressing or bars, many of which were closed.

All this is reminiscent of a golden age that made the Torrejon, as in other suburbs, a mixture of low-skilled immigrants who found work but easy, especially in construction and services.

In this city, a quarter of the 118,000 residents are immigrants, mainly Romanian, Latin Americans or Africans. In the past 15 years, Spain, in full euphoria of construction, has received over five million foreigners. In 2005, the country to regulate the situation of migrant workers 600,000.

"We got used to a good life, the pleasures, we could buy a piece of land in our country and we could bring their families. But it was all over," summarizes Magali Quezada, a Peruvian arrived at Torrejon ago a decade.

Currently, immigrants are at the forefront of the crisis.

Luis Mendes, aged 40, comes from Guinea Bissau. When he arrived in Spain in 1997, he thought he had found Eldorado. He first worked in agriculture, and construction and even obtained a loan of 100,000 euros to buy an apartment of 70 square meters.

"Earning quite well, 1,800 euros per month, because often work overtime. It is enough to help my family," remaining in Africa, he recalls.

"But now no longer work. I received unemployment benefits for one year, but now I get" Luis continues, which shares the apartment with two brothers, and her unemployed.

The unemployment rate rose to over 21.5 percent in Spain, and foreigners are the most affected as a percentage of 32.7 percent. Many are indebted, after obtaining easy loans to buy apartments or cars at a time when banks made loans without too many precautions.

Currently, Luis is no longer able to pay taxes and could be expelled from day to day.

On the same street with Luis, called "street expulsion" because many people are threatened by this, a group of "outraged" tried in vain at the end of November, to prevent the expulsion of Consuelo Lozano, a 40-old Ecuadorian , who owed the bank 200,000 euros.

"It is a fight against giants, and I, besides they are not nothing," she confessed, with tears in her eyes, shortly after he handed the key to his apartment.

Some of these immigrants would want to return home, but as Spain Consuelo are linked through a real estate loan or debt to be repaid.

The unemployed maid, who managed to send their children in Ecuador, was forced to remain in Spain, under the threat of debt sent his sister, who guaranteed the loan for the apartment.

Luis puts no problem but to return: "It is very hard here, living poorly," but "in my country is worse," he says.