Spain Looks to Grant Residency to Nearly 1 Million Undocumented Migrants

Migrants being helped onto shore by a Spanish maritime rescue vessel in the Canary Islands in September.Credit...Antonio Sempere/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The government said new rules could give legal status — and work permits — to about 300,000 people a year over the next three years to address gaps in the labor marketCountries in Europe have shrinking working-age populations, with businesses reporting a chronic shortage of workers, especially in sectors like elder care, agriculture and hospitality. Yet there is only a limited legal path for migration to the continent, and governments have been slow to expand it as anti-immigrant sentiment grows across Europe.

Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister of Spain, has spoken often about the country’s dire need for labor and said last month that immigration was critical for economic growth. The key to migration, he said, “is in managing it well.”Spain said it could give residency and work permits to about 900,000 undocumented migrants in the country over the next three years to help address a growing need for workers, even as other European countries embrace tougher stances on immigration.

The new rules will start in May, with government officials expecting that about 300,000 migrants will be given legal status per year until 2027. Only people who have been living in Spain for at least two years will be eligible, the government said.

Legalizing undocumented migrants is not just about “respect for human rights,” said Elma Saiz, Spain’s migration minister, in an interview with national broadcaster Radio Nacional de España. “It’s also about prosperity.”

She said Spain needs about 250,000 foreign workers a year to maintain its welfare state, given its “demographic challenges,” including one of the lowest birthrates in Europe.

Ismael Gálvez Iniesta, an economics professor at the University of the Balearic Islands, said that most undocumented migrants in Spain are women from South America. Many arrived by plane on tourist visas and overstayed. There are no official figures on how many of them are working, but many move to Spain — where they already speak the language — for the economic opportunities, he Presse Spain’s new rules will not apply to recent arrivals, including the more than 25,500 people who have arrived illegally this year in the Canary Islands from West Africa — more than double the number of arrivals in the same period last year, according to Frontex, the European Union’s external border agency