Spain’s Socialist Government Moves to Legalize Up to 500,000 Illegal Migrants in Sweeping Decree

Spain’s entrenched leftist political class is once again moving to normalize illegality, this time through an extraordinary mass regularization that could grant legal status to more than 500,000 illegal immigrants.

The deal, announced Monday by far-left Podemos and the Socialist government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, represents one of the most sweeping amnesties in modern Spanish history, La Gaceta reports.

According to party sources and reports from Cadena SER, the measure will be approved by royal decree at Tuesday’s Council of Ministers. It bypasses ordinary parliamentary scrutiny and fast-tracks a policy that will undoubtedly have catastrophic, long-term demographic, economic, and security consequences.

Under the plan, illegal immigrants who can demonstrate as little as five months of residence in Spain will be eligible for legal status. The regularization applies regardless of how they entered the country or whether they previously violated immigration or labor laws.

The cutoff date for eligibility is December 31, 2025, meaning anyone already residing illegally in Spain before that date may qualify. Government estimates suggest more than half a million people could benefit, making this not an isolated humanitarian measure but a structural transformation of Spain’s migration policy.

Once an application is filed, existing expulsion orders for administrative violations or unauthorized work will be automatically suspended. When the application is accepted for processing, the applicant will receive a provisional residence permit allowing legal employment and access to public services, including healthcare.

In effect, the state is converting illegal presence into lawful residency with minimal requirements. Critics argue that this erases the distinction between legal and illegal migration and rewards those who ignored Spain’s immigration laws.

The regularization aligns with a Popular Legislative Initiative (ILP) supported by every parliamentary party except national-conservative VOX. Even the Popular Party (PP), which campaigns rhetorically on “orderly migration,” voted in favor of the initiative, leaving VOX as the sole institutional voice opposing the measure.

VOX has long warned that mass amnesties act as a powerful pull factor, encouraging further illegal immigration by signaling that enforcement will eventually be abandoned. From its perspective, the Sánchez government is institutionalizing the very “call effect” that has strained Spain’s borders, welfare system, and public security.

Party leaders argue that the policy shifts costs onto working Spaniards while absolving the state of its responsibility to enforce the law. Legal residents and citizens, they contend, will bear the burden through housing shortages, pressure on healthcare, and wage competition in already fragile labor markets.

VOX leader Santiago Abascal sharply condemned the Sánchez government’s decision to approve a large-scale regularization of illegal immigrants on Tuesday.

In a statement, Abascal said: “After 46 deaths, immediately after 46 fatalities from the corruption of this Government, Sánchez announces the regularization process of half a million illegal immigrants. Corruption kills, we have been able to verify it. Sánchez’s mafia is directly involved in the horror and chaos of the railway network. And the invasion also kills. This half a million regularizations will call for another millions that will further aggravate the collapse of healthcare, housing and security.”

“We Spaniards have to react. At VOX we have already started contacts with our European allies to launch all possible initiatives against this new crime by Sánchez that frontally attacks sovereignty and coexistence. And we will also activate all legal avenues to try to prevent this new attack on the Spanish. But it’s difficult. The mafia acts without scruples, without respect for the law or the interests of Spaniards. Without respect for the lives of the Spanish. We have verified it. That is why we also support all the planned strikes and mobilizations coming soon, from those called in healthcare to those called by machinists. Sectors that are now also directly suffering the outrages of Pedro Sánchez,” he added.

“We would like to have more strength and thus be more effective. But we only have the strength that you give us. Of course, you can be completely sure that we are going to use it in its entirety to denounce that corruption kills and that invasion also kills. And to put this guilty mafia in prison.”

The use of a royal decree has further inflamed criticism. Rather than engaging in a national debate on immigration, the government is pushing through a decision of historic magnitude via executive fiat, insulating itself from public accountability.

VOX has positioned itself as the only party willing to challenge this consensus head-on. Its rejection of the ILP and the government’s decree reflects a broader demand for border enforcement, deportations of illegal entrants, and an end to policies that incentivize lawbreaking.

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