When the Spanish government first announced its program to help migrants become legal, they thought that about 500,000 people would apply. Before the deadline on June 30, more than a million applications had been sent in. There is a gap between what people expected and what happened. This gap says something important. It wasn’t just about the policy; it was also about how big the informal economy had grown in one of Europe’s biggest economies without anyone knowing about it.
Diana, a 40-year-old from Peru who moved to Spain two years ago, was very clear about what it’s like to live without papers: employers telling you one thing but paying you something else, and there’s no way to fight back. “You can get exploited,” she replied, “and then you can end up not just without any money, but sick and lonely.” Her story is not unique. This is what all of the more than a million applications that Madrid got had in common.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been very direct for a European leader when he talks about the economic benefits of immigration. He said on Tuesday that Spain’s GDP would be 19% lower by 2050 if immigration didn’t happen. Ninety thousand bars would close. It would mean the end of more than 200,000 farms. It’s an interesting way to make the case—not in terms of a moral obligation, but in terms of staying alive financially. It probably depends on where you are if you find that framing convincing or not.
The program is simple in theory, but not so much in practice. Candidates must show that they lived in Spain before the end of 2025, for at least five months straight, and not have a criminal record that would keep them from applying. In exchange, they get a residence and work permit that can be renewed for one year. It’s not an open door, it’s an offer with conditions, and that difference is important for how the policy will be judged in the end.
The challenge that lies ahead for administration is real. Spain has three months to go through more than a million files, each of which needs to be checked for criminal records, identity, and proof of residence. The caseload is huge, even if you are optimistic. People who are waiting for decisions can now work, rent apartments, and use basic services, but they will not be able to do any of those things until the decisions come in. Processing speed isn’t a small matter of paperwork in this case. For a million people, it means the policy will either work or become another source of frustration.
It’s important to remember that Spain isn’t creating something brand new. Regularization programs have been used by other governments, even conservative ones. This one, though, is on a different level, and the political climate is also different. A lot of people in Europe are talking about stricter rules for migration, like faster returns, tighter borders, and processing in a third country. That’s clearly not how Spain feels about things, even though Sánchez has been careful to say that it’s just a decision about the Spanish job market and not a criticism of the European consensus.
The opposition to the government at home has been loud. The People’s Party says the program will put too much pressure on public services. The words Vox has used have been harsher. Two regional governments have gone to court to challenge the law. Some people think that the debate in Spain is a reflection of a bigger problem: people really don’t agree on whether large-scale legalization is a realistic response to the economic situation or a message that encourages more people to come to the country illegally in the future.
That tension probably won’t go away quickly. It doesn’t do that often with migration policy. Spain has done something very dangerous: they have run a public experiment with a lot of people. The results won’t be in the number of applications, but in what happens next: how many people get formal jobs, how quickly claims are processed, whether wages change in affected industries, and whether the expected tax and social security gains happen. A million applications is the lead sentence. That’s the story. The next two years are what those people go through.
