The Spanish government on Tuesday unexpectedly issued a decree that gives hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants a path out of legal limbo, putting Spain at odds with many countries around the world that have grown increasingly tough on illegal immigration.
The measure will allow undocumented people already living in Spain to apply for temporary residency permits. The Socialist-led government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described it as crucial for Spain, where migrant labor plays a key role in agriculture, tourism and more.
Elma Saiz Delgado, Spain’s minister for migration, said at a news conference on Tuesday that the measure would have an impact “on our social cohesion, well-being, and also on the economy.”
Opposition parties immediately criticized the measure, with one far-right party promising to challenge it in court.
The measure, announced on Tuesday is bucking a trend, as many Western governments, often under pressure from far-right, populist parties, have cracked down on illegal immigration in recent years.
In the United States, the Trump administration is carrying out a sweeping, aggressive campaign to arrest and deport millions of people. Britain has rolled out stricter rules for refugees; Greece now imposes prison terms for migrants who remain in the country after their asylum claims are rejected; and Italy wants to hold asylum seekers in Albania while their cases are being processed, despite stiff legal opposition.
Spain, in contrast, has embraced immigrants, especially Latin Americans who speak Spain’s language, share its religion and understand its culture, although activists say that warm welcome has not always extended to many Africans.
And the Spanish government has outsourced migration control, providing police equipment, technology and training to countries like Morocco and Mauritania to turn back migrants from Africa.
Still, the decree builds on Spain’s attempts to present itself as a beacon for immigrants.
“In the current international context, marked by the rise of anti-migration discourse, Spain’s decision represents a counterweight,” said Cecilia Estrada Villaseñor, a researcher at the Institute for Migration Studies at Pontifical University of Comillas in Madrid.
Spain does not publish official figures on the number of undocumented migrants living in the country, but estimates from institutions like Funcas, an economic think tank, suggest the number could be between half a million and a million. Spain’s total population is almost 50 million.
The legalization measure was spurred by domestic politics.
The Council of Ministers, the executive branch of the government, approved it through a royal decree, after Mr. Sánchez’s government struck a last-minute deal on Monday with a smaller left-wing party, Unidas Podemos, in exchange for its parliamentary support. A similar measure had been stuck in parliament since April 2024.
Under the decree, undocumented migrants will be eligible for temporary residence permits if they can prove that they arrived in Spain before December 2025 and that they have lived in the country for at least five months. People with criminal records will be excluded; applications will be accepted only between April and June. The residency permits, which allow people to work in Spain, will last one year and will be renewable.
“It brings me closer to my dream, and the dream of many others like me: to live in peace and work with dignity to support our families,” said Sady Traoré, 28, who works in citrus groves in Alzira, in eastern Spain. Mr. Traoré, a musician who said he fled his native Mali after a military coup in 2022, arrived in Spain’s Canary Islands in 2024, but has since been unable to secure an appointment to apply for asylum.
The push to give undocumented migrants a pathway to residency gained momentum during the Covid-19 pandemic, when many migrants continued to work in precarious conditions during Spain’s lockdowns.
Foreign workers have eased Spain’s labor shortage and helped boost economic growth, according to a study by economists at the European Central Bank.
Ismael Gálvez, a professor of economics at the University of the Balearic Islands who has studied the impact of migration on Spain’s economy, said that it was hard to predict how the government’s measure would play out, except that it was not likely to put a lot of pressure on the housing or labor market for native-born Spaniards because it applies only to migrants already living in the country.
“Migrants mainly compete with workers who are similar to them, that is, other migrants,” Mr. Gálvez said.
More than 700,000 Spaniards had signed a popular legislative initiative that began in 2021 — led by migrant groups, and supported by left-wing associations and the Catholic Church — calling for a parliamentary debate on giving undocumented migrants a pathway to residency.
Opposition leaders were quick to criticize the move. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, head of the conservative Popular Party, accused the government of using the measure to distract public attention from a deadly train crash that killed 45 people this month. Vox, a far-right party, said it would challenge the decree before Spain’s Supreme Court,accusing Mr. Sánchez of “accelerating an invasion.”
Spain has carried out eight large-scale campaigns to legalize undocumented people since the mid-1980s, under both conservative and progressive governments, affecting at least one million migrants.
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