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The Spanish government is set to grant residency permits to more than 1 million undocumented migrants, double the number that was projected when a mass regularisation program was announced in April, according to a person familiar with the matter.
The deadline to apply under the extraordinary program expired on Tuesday and preliminary data show more than 1.1 million applications, most of which the government is likely to approve, the person said, asking not to be named discussing government data. A spokesman for the Migration Ministry said that although the process has closed, it is still too early to provide a final figure on accepted applications.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez in April offered residence and work permits to anyone in Spain on Dec. 31 last year who could prove they’d been in the country for five months and had no criminal record. The program, initially backed by labor unions, business groups and the Roman Catholic Church, has drawn opposition from the conservative opposition and stands in sharp contrast to the tightening of immigration policies across most of the rest of Europe and the US.
“Without immigration, Spain would lose 19% of its gross domestic product by 2050 and 22% by 2075,” Sánchez said at an event in Madrid on Tuesday. “90,000 bars would have to close, 50,000 primary and secondary school classrooms would be left without students, and about 220,000 farms would disappear — one in every three.”
About 70% of applicants are from Latin American countries, with Colombians accounting for about 30%, the person said. Moroccans and Venezuelans each make up more than 10% of applicants. While the government still has time to process the applications, it is expected to approve most of them because those with criminal records account for less than 1% of the total.
According to a recent Bank of Spain report, the immigrant population accounted for about half of Spain’s GDP growth and more than two-thirds of employment gains between 2022 and 2025 — and it didn’t harm the job prospects of native-born workers. As a result of the strong inflow, Spain’s economy has outpaced those of the region’s largest economies since the pandemic, while the unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level since before the global financial crisis.
The regularization program is part of a broader immigration strategy that has seen Spain’s population increase by 3.5 million since Sánchez took office in 2018. The country’s population is now approaching 50 million, up by a quarter since the start of the century. As a result, the foreign-born share of the population has climbed to nearly 20%.
The plan could still face legal hurdles after Spain’s Supreme Court said Tuesday it may suspend its implementation while asking the Court of Justice of the European Union to rule on whether it is compatible with EU law, according to a court statement.
Opposition leader and People’s Party head Alberto Núñez Feijóo said the government “does things without consensus, unilaterally, against European law.” He claimed the measures, along with others, are intended to expand the electoral roll in the government’s favor ahead of the next general election in 2027.
(Updates with the ministry’s comment in the second paragraph and the opposition’s comments in the ninth paragraph.)
This report is auto generated from the Bloomberg news service. ThePrint holds no responsibility for its content.