Chaos at the Immigration Office: Without an Appointment for Your NIE, You'll Lose Your Job and Be Unable to Travel

If your residence permit expires and you can’t renew it, you’re at a dead end. That’s how hundreds of people in Barcelona feel, where the Immigration Office’s appointment system is overwhelmed. On Tuesday, Pakistani workers gathered outside the office on Passeig de Sant Joan to protest that there are no appointments available, that criminal gangs are reselling them, and that the situation gets worse every summer.

Azhar Shahzad—54 years old, from Punjab, and a resident of Badalona for over twenty years—has a residence permit set to expire in August. “I’ve been trying to get an appointment for over two months, but it’s impossible,” he says. If he doesn’t renew it, he won’t be able to see his family or continue working as a driver. Like him, many others are desperate. Afzaal Mohammad lost his NIE and needs a replacement to travel to Germany and Poland for work. “There’s no way to get an appointment; every day they tell you, ‘there are no appointments,’” he complains.

In fact, the lack of appointments has created a black market. Mohammad explains: “People contact you on Facebook; you give them your information and pay 30 euros, and in half an hour you have an appointment.” Prices vary: from 20 to 80 euros, depending on the procedure. Leaders of the Pakistani community denounce the inaction of the Government Delegation. “In Madrid, there isn’t this problem—only in Barcelona,” notes Javed Ilyas, president of the Association of Pakistani Workers in Catalonia.

But it’s not just renewals that are affected. To take the citizenship oath, you have to wait a year. And those who want to return to their home country can’t get their return letters. “There are people whose fathers have died and who can’t go,” laments Ilyas. According to the protesters, the bottleneck stems from a lack of staff: there are only three immigration counters compared to twenty for national ID cards. “It’s a matter of political will,” says Umar Dar Karim, who now has Spanish citizenship but still handles similar cases at his agency.

So those affected have to fend for themselves: they book appointments using bots, pay illegal agents, or simply wait without knowing what to do. Meanwhile, they lose their jobs, can’t open bank accounts, and watch as their lives come to a standstill. “The NIE is everything for foreigners; without it, you’re lost,” Dar Karim sums up. The protest, which brought together about a dozen organizations, chanted slogans such as “Appointments now, out with the mafias.”

If you’re having trouble with your appointment or paperwork, message us on Telegram: https://t.me/cita_extranjeria