Government of Spain approves the rule to regularize thousands of migrants who have no criminal record

The Spanish government approved this Tuesday an extraordinary regularization of migrants that plans to give residence and work permits in Spain to around half a million people who are already in the country, defended by President Pedro Sánchez as an act of justice and necessity, and rejected by the right and the extreme right. However, the indefinite strike announced in the Immigration offices starting April 21 to protest because these workers are not participating in the process may complicate it.

Furthermore, the main police unions criticize that the regularization is approved “with our backs turned” to security professionals with an “externalized” processing process that increases, they warn, the risks of fraud, errors or deficiencies in the identity and background verification of applicants.

In a letter to the citizens signed this Tuesday, the President of the Government assures that this measure is an act of “normalization” by recognizing the reality of almost half a million people who are already part of the daily lives of Spaniards, take care of their elders, work so that food reaches their tables and undertake.

But it is also, he points out, an act of justice for the ancestors of the Spaniards who emigrated to America and Europe in search of a better life and for many young people who were forced to leave after the 2008 crisis.

All of them helped build the societies that welcomed them and contributed to modernizing Spain, writes Sánchez.

The Chief Executive points out that it is also “a necessity”, since Spain, “like other European countries, is aging” and without new people working and contributing, its prosperity is slowed, its capacity to innovate is weakened and its public services – healthcare, pensions, education – suffer.

In Spain there are thousands of people who entered the country irregularly and who work in sectors with a high demand for labor such as agriculture or care.

The conservative Popular Party (PP), the main opposition group, rejects this regularization, considering it “inhuman” and “unfair,” in addition to the fact that it “feeds the mafias,” its leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, denounced this Tuesday.

He also assured that “it is unsafe” because “there is not enough control” nor “sufficient demands.”

Feijóo also considered that it goes against the European Pact on Migration and Asylum, defended by the majority of the European Parliament.

Vox (far-right) launched an awareness campaign this Tuesday about the consequences of “massive” immigration and against the regularization decree, and announced that they will appeal to the Supreme Court to request its precautionary suspension.

Meanwhile, entities of the Catholic Church such as Cáritas asked the Administration this Tuesday to provide all means so that the regularization process reaches all potentially beneficiary foreigners.

They consider that administrative irregularity places people in a situation of “strong vulnerability”, since it “seriously limits their access to basic rights and exposes them to multiple forms of discrimination”, while regularization allows them to “get out of uncertainty”.