The Spanish plan to give 500,000 migrants residency has sparked furious backlash, with right-wing opponents warning it will accelerate ‘invasion’, worsen the housing crisis and overwhelm public services.
The Socialist government’s move sharply diverges from the wave of tougher immigration policies occurring in Europe and the United States.
Because the coalition lacks a majority in parliament, the initiative is scheduled to be approved by royal decree.
Coming into force in April, the policy will allow eligible migrants to obtain up to one year residency and a work permit.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez defended the scheme following criticism from domestic opponents and tech billionaire Elon Musk, arguing that Spain is choosing the path of ‘dignity, community and justice’.
In a 46-second video posted in English on social media, Sánchez addressed critics who ‘say we’ve gone too far’, asserting: ‘When did recognising rights become something radical? When did empathy become something exceptional?’
But Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the conservative opposition Popular Party (PP), warned the scheme would ‘increase the pull effect and overwhelm our public services’ and would exacerbate the housing crisis.
‘This plan comes at a time when rents and home prices are breaking records and working-class families are being squeezed out of cities,’ Feijóo said.
‘Adding hundreds of thousands more people to a labour market already straining under a serious housing crisis will compound those problems, not solve them.’
People queue outside Pakistan’s consulate in Barcelona to apply for criminal record certificates, a document required for the migrant regularisation scheme, January 30
The number of undocumented migrants in Spain rose from 107,409 in 2017 to 837,938 in 2025
The measure will grant beneficiaries an initial one-year residence permit, which can subsequently be extended
Undocumented migrants who had lived in Spain for at least five months by the end of 2025 and who have no criminal record, as well as those who had applied for asylum before the end of the year, will be eligible for the accelerated residence permit.
The permit is valid for a year – or five for children – and can subsequently be extended.
After ten years, migrants could become citizens of Spain, or sooner if they originate from Latin American countries or are refugees.
‘We are reinforcing a migratory model based on human rights, integration, co-existence and which is compatible with economic growth and social cohesion,’ migration minister Elma Saiz said, adding that economists had attributed Spain’s declining unemployment and growth in part to its openness to migrants.
‘Providing rights is the answer to racism,’ said Irene Montero, from the far-left Podemos party and a former minister in a coalition government with the Socialists.
Hundreds of Pakistani nationals were seen queueing outside the country’s consulate in Barcelona’s Eixample district last week, to apply for certificates showing they did not hold criminal records.
In the past three years, Spain’s population increased by 1.5 million to 48.9 million, with almost all the increase due to immigration.
Latin Americans make up 70 per cent of recent arrivals.
Sanchez argues immigrants are key to Spain’s economy, which expanded 2.8 percent last year – more than twice the average expected in the entire eurozone.
But with about 90 per cent of new jobs going to immigrants, income per person has barely grown in Spain.
Moreover, each year sees 140,000 new households, but only about 80,000 new homes built.
A lack of affordable housing has become a central grievance among voters, contributing to social tension.
Critics of the new programme argue that without simultaneous housing policy reforms, legalising large numbers of migrants increases competition for scarce accommodation, particularly in urban centres such as Barcelona and Madrid.
With Spain facing an ageing population and low birth rate, Sanchez says immigrants help sustain the workforce and maintain the pension system
The main opposition conservative Popular Party (PP) and far-right Vox have lashed out at the government, saying the regularisation will encourage more illegal immigration
Prime Minister Sanchez argues immigrants are key to Spain’s economy, which expanded 2.8 percent last year – more than twice the average expected in the entire eurozone
Santiago Abascal, the leader of the populist hard-right party Vox, accused the Socialist-led coalition of accelerating what he called an ‘invasion’.
Pepa Millán, spokeswoman for Vox, said the plan ‘attacks our identity’, pledging that the party would appeal before the Supreme Court in an attempt to block it.
The political row escalated after Musk posted a link on X – which he owns – to a post by a man named Ian Miles Cheong who called the plan ‘electoral engineering’, along with the comment: ‘Wow.’
‘Spain just legalized 500,000 illegal aliens to “defeat the far-right”,’ Cheong wrote in the post which has had over 16 million views.
‘The logic is simple: legalise half a million people, fast-track them to citizenship (which takes as little as two years for many), and you’ve effectively imported a massive, loyal voting bloc that’s indebted to the left,’ he continued.
Sanchez hit back at Musk, responding to the tech mogul’s post on X late last Thursday with the message: ‘Mars can wait. Humanity can’t.’
Musk’s aerospace company SpaceX is developing the mammoth Starship – the world’s largest and most powerful rocket – as part of his vision to take humans to Mars.
With Spain facing an ageing population and low birth rate, Sanchez says immigrants help sustain the workforce and maintain the pension system.
Immigrants represent ‘wealth, development and prosperity’ for Spain, he said, pointing to their contribution to the country’s social security system.
But public disquiet about immigration has grown in the country, with polls indicating immigration is now among voters’ top concerns, together with housing and unemployment.
Analysts have sounded the alarm that without complementary policies addressing housing supply and integration, the scheme could harden public sentiment further, giving momentum to opposition parties’ hardline anti-immigration stances.
More than 3,000 people died trying to reach Spain by sea last year, according to a report by the NGO Caminando Frontera, including 192 women and 437 children.
The figure is a significant drop from the 10,457 people who died in the attempt in 2024, potentially due to tighter border controls.
There was an increase in the number of shipwrecks to 303, with about 70 boats having disappeared without leaving a trace.
The number of undocumented migrants in Spain rose from 107,409 in 2017 to 837,938 in 2025, representing an eight-fold increase, according to findings from conservative think-tank Funcas.
The majority of undocumented migrants living in Spain are understood to be from Colombia, Peru and Honduras.
The country has been outperforming other EU nations in recent years, with unemployment – a longstanding issue in the Spanish economy – dipping below 10 per cent for the first time since 2008.
The new policy represents the first large-scale migrant regularisation in Spain for two decades.
Between 1986 and 2005, governments of both the Socialists and the conservative PP legalised the status of an estimated half a million migrants.
