Spain to Legalize Undocumented Migrants Amid Political Backlash
The cabinet’s decision, expected to take effect in April, will grant one-year residence and work permits to foreigners who can prove they have lived in Spain for at least five months before the end of 2025. The policy, drafted by Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Party and the left-wing Podemos party, bypassed a divided parliament. Authorities argue that the measure is necessary to address workforce shortages and Spain’s aging population.
Sanchez said that Spain “lacks people” and must choose between being “a closed and poor nation” or “opening itself to the world to ensure prosperity.”
Opposition leaders sharply criticized the move, framing it as politically motivated and reckless. Popular Party (PP) leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo accused Sanchez of attempting to “deflect attention” from a national crisis following recent deadly passenger train accidents and denounced the regularization as a “reward for illegal migration,” pledging to repeal it if his party regained power.
Right-wing Vox leader Santiago Abascal went further, claiming the government was encouraging a large-scale “invasion” to “replace” the local population and calling for mass deportations.
The initiative comes at a time when Europe is increasingly tightening immigration policies, amid public concerns over integration and crime that have bolstered right-wing parties. Critics warn that open-border measures are altering the continent’s social fabric.
US President Donald Trump recently weighed in, saying European nations were “destroying” themselves through uncontrolled migration, resulting in “lower economic growth, lower standards of living, lower birth rates, more socially disruptive migration, [and] more vulnerability to hostile foreign adversaries.”
Moscow has also repeatedly highlighted what it perceives as the EU’s decline, with Russian President Vladimir Putin stating last month that after the collapse of the USSR, Russia had expected to be welcomed into the “civilized Western family,” only to find that “civilization there is nonexistent, and degradation is all there is.”
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