Spain receives 1.2 million applications under migrant regularization scheme
Spain’s Socialist-led government said roughly 1.17 million undocumented migrants applied for legal residency and work permits during a regularization window that opened in mid-April and closed on 30 June, with more than 600,000 files already in processing. Applicants had to show a clean criminal record and at least five months’ prior residence; about two-thirds came from Latin America, led by Colombia, and roughly a fifth from African countries.
Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has cast the program as economic self-interest as much as humanitarian policy, arguing that an aging Spain depends on migrant labor to sustain output and public services. The scale of the response — permits valid only in Spain, to be issued within three months — sets up a sharp contrast with the restrictionist turn elsewhere in Europe and hands the far-right opposition, which brands the move an “invasion,” a live campaign issue.