Spain has made a move to grant legal residency to up to half a million undocumented immigrants, taking a different approach than the one expressed in recent months by Western European countries hosting migrants.
Governments like that of Germany and the United Kingdom, increasingly seeing their resources drained by migrants, are taking measures other than curb arrivals and increase deportations.
Spain, by contrast, is adopting a pragmatic approach. That is, if people are already living and working in the country, the logic goes, they should also be paying taxes.
On Tuesday, the Socialist-led government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced that undocumented immigrants who had lived in Spain for at least five months before the end of last year and who have no criminal record will be able to legalize their status in the coming months.
Officials estimate that around 500,000 people could qualify, though analysts believe the figure may be higher.
Elma Saiz, Spain’s minister for inclusion, social security and migration, said the policy is intended to “recognize, dignify and provide guarantees, opportunities and rights to people who are already in our country.”
The government plans to enact the measure through a royal decree — interestingly, bypassing Parliament, where it lacks a majority.
The decision comes amid declining unemployment and labor shortages in key sectors. It also enjoys broad backing from labor unions and even the Catholic Church. Officials hope the policy will increase tax and social-security contributions by bringing more workers out of the informal economy.
Over the past 50 years, governments on both the left and right have carried out six large-scale migrant regularizations.
The most recent, in 2005, granted legal status to roughly 576,000 people.
Therefore, backlash has not been huge, although opposition does exist. The far-right Vox party has gained support in recent years by arguing that mass immigration strains public services and contributes to crime. But criticism from the mainstream conservative People’s Party has been restrained, focusing more on the policy’s details than on its underlying premise.
The Catholic Church’s endorsement has certainly softened conservative resistance. More so, over 90% of whom come from Latin America — Colombia, Honduras, Peru and Venezuela, principally. This removes linguistic barriers and many of the social frictions that create problems from migrants from the Middle East, for instance.
An estimated 840,000 undocumented migrants currently live in Spain.
Most undocumented migrants enter Spain legally on temporary visas and then overstay. Established family networks often help Latin Americans integrate and find work.
The government has cited research on the 2005 regularization showing that each legalized migrant increased public finances by an average of about €4,000 per year.
And what’s more, politicians wants to energize their base with a big and united new demographic.
