The Spanish government has announced a plan to legalise the status of undocumented migrants, a measure expected to benefit at least half a million people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Regularisation will be available to foreign nationals who do not have a criminal record and can prove they lived in Spain for at least five months prior to 31 December 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“This is an historic day for our country,” said Elma Saiz, Spain’s minister of inclusion, social security and migration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The measure will provide beneficiaries with an initial one-year residence permit, which can then be extended. Requests for legalisation are expected to begin in April and the process will remain open until the end of June.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We are reinforcing a migratory model based on human rights, integration, co-existence and which is compatible with economic growth and social cohesion,” Saiz said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spain has seen a large influx of migrants in recent years, mainly from Latin America.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The conservative think-tank Funcas found that the number of undocumented migrants in Spain had risen from 107,409 in 2017 to 837,938 in 2025 – an eight-fold increase. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The highest number of undocumented arrivals currently living in Spain are believed to be from Colombia, Peru and Honduras.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Spain’s socialist-led coalition government has been an outlier on this issue among the larger European nations, underlining the importance of migrants for the economy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The country has been outperforming the other main EU economies in recent years, posting expected growth of close to 3% in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unemployment, a longstanding weakness of the Spanish economy, has dipped below 10% for the first time since 2008, according to figures released on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez has described immigrants as representing “wealth, development and prosperity” for Spain, pointing to their contribution to the social security system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government and parties on the left have also emphasised the need to treat migrants in a humane way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Providing rights is the answer to racism,” said Irene Montero, of the far-left Podemos party and a former minister in a coalition government with the Socialists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She has campaigned for this measure, which followed an agreement between the party and the government. A civic legislative proposal, calling for a mass migrant regularisation, received the support of around 700,000 people but had been languishing in parliament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This measure will be approved by royal decree, meaning it does not require parliamentary approval.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is the first large-scale migrant regularisation in Spain for two decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Several such initiatives, by governments of both the Socialists and the conservative People’s Party (PP), legalised the status of an estimated half a million migrants between 1986 and 2005.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, Alberto N\u00fa\u00f1ez Feij\u00f3o, leader of the PP, said the latest mass legalisation would “increase the pull effect and overwhelm our public services”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pepa Mill\u00e1n, spokeswoman for the far-right Vox, said the initiative “attacks our identity”, adding that the party would appeal before the Supreme Court in a bid to block it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Spanish government has announced a plan to legalise the status of undocumented migrants, a measure expected to benefit at least half a million people. Regularisation will be available to foreign nationals who do not have a criminal record and can prove they lived in Spain for at least five months prior to 31 December […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":48620,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_post_source_name":"","_post_source_url":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[12268,9306,11394,5858,10000,10507,12866,9198,5196,159,9505,2264,6543,10840,2702,9222,6094,12773,5910,7360,6461,12867,7343,65,7806,12187,12085,1198,1565,8878,3174,504,5655,8233,4293,10480,1825,7746,594],"class_list":["post-48619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news","tag-alberto-nunez-feijoo","tag-appeal","tag-attacks","tag-colombia","tag-conservative","tag-court","tag-documentation","tag-economies","tag-economy","tag-eu","tag-european","tag-government","tag-growth","tag-human-rights","tag-identity","tag-immigrants","tag-immigration","tag-increase","tag-initiative","tag-legalise","tag-migrant","tag-migrant-status","tag-migrants","tag-migration","tag-model","tag-n","tag-nations","tag-parliament","tag-pedro","tag-peru","tag-prime-minister","tag-racism","tag-security","tag-social-security","tag-spain","tag-spanish","tag-supreme-court","tag-unemployment","tag-who"],"blocksy_meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48621,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48619\/revisions\/48621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nsemgh.com\/api-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}