As the United States faces negative net migration due to President Donald Trump’s policies, Spain is moving in the opposite direction, announcing plans to grant legal status to half a million illegal migrants.
Spain’s Socialist-led government approved a royal decree on Tuesday allowing unauthorized immigrants who entered the country before the end of 2025 and have lived there for at least five months and have no criminal record to obtain a one-year residence and work permit with possible pathways to citizenship.
While many European governments have taken steps to tighten immigration policies – some encouraged by the Trump administration’s tough approach – Spain has taken a different path. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his ministers have repeatedly emphasized what they describe as the economic benefits of legal migration, especially for the country’s aging workforce.
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Spanish Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance María Jesús Montero and Second Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Labor Yolanda Díaz at the Spanish Parliament in Madrid, Spain, March 14, 2024. (AP Photo/Manu Fernandez)
Spain “will not look the other way,” Migration Minister Elma Saiz told reporters at a news conference, saying the government “dignifies and recognizes people who are already in our country.”
The plan has sparked a fierce political battle as conservatives and the populist Vox party have condemned what they describe as an amnesty that could fuel irregular migration.
Vox leader Santiago Abascal wrote on social media that the measure “harms all Spaniards,” arguing that critics of his party are motivated by fear of Vox’s growing influence.
“They are not concerned about the consequences of Sánchez’s criminal policies,” Abascal wrote. “They are afraid that Vox will gain more power.”
“If Spain wants to become a gathering place for such people, I am sure that other European countries would appreciate signing agreements to transfer their own illegal migrants there. If this does not happen, we will all pay the price for Spain’s generosity.”
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A migrant walks past a makeshift settlement where migrants expelled from a former high school camped outside in the dead of winter in Badalona, Spain, December 26, 2025. (Bruna Casas/Reuters)
Migrants in Madrid, Spain, April 9, 2024. (Francesco Militello Mirto/Nur Photo via Getty Images)
He said Spain’s immigration system has been showing signs of strain for years.
“When hundreds of thousands of people live in irregular conditions for years, the problem ceases to be an individual failure and becomes a structural failure,” Zapata-Barrero said. ‘In this context, regularization is not leniency – it is governability.
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Migrants wait to disembark at the port of Arguineguin after being rescued by a Spanish coast guard ship on the island of Gran Canaria, Spain, November 14, 2025. (Borja Suarez/Reuters)
“In a Europe that is confining itself, Spain has taken a step that sets it apart – not because it is ‘softer’, but because it is more pragmatic,” he added. “Whether this will become a model or a counter-model within the EU remains to be seen. But one thing is certain: Spain has launched a political experiment that Europe will be watching closely.”
Reuters and Associated Press contributed to this report.
