Spain’s mass amnesty for illegal migrants could ultimately result in around three million people obtaining legal status when family reunification is included, according to senior immigration officials cited by El Mundo.
The estimate is based on approximately 1.2 million expected applicants, far above the 500,000 beneficiaries initially projected by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government.
Officials warned that each person granted legal status could later be joined by several relatives.
“For every person whose status is regularized, at least three more will be added if they apply for and are granted family reunification,” one source told the newspaper.
Senior National Police officials reportedly believe the resulting volume of applications could cause the immigration system to break down.
“The system is going to collapse. This process is something no one in their right mind would initiate. Spain is an exception, that much is clear,” police officials in highly-affected areas told the press under the condition of anonymity.
They warned that the process is widely open to abuse, suggesting that regularized foreigners could charge illegal migrants to “pose as relatives. In other words, paying for papers and certificates.”
They also accused the government of deliberately reducing the police role in the process and transferring greater responsibility to the Ministry of Migration.
Under the proposed system, police would largely produce residence cards after applications had already been approved by immigration officials. The senior officers argued that ministry personnel lack the specialist training needed to verify foreign documents and criminal records properly.
The National Police’s General Commissariat for Immigration and Borders had previously challenged the government’s justification for treating the measure as an urgent social emergency, under which Sánchez passed the amnesty by royal decree, effectively bypassing any parliamentary oversight.
An internal report, cited by El Mundo, warned that a regularization on this scale could encourage further illegal migration, create public-order concerns and place additional pressure on healthcare, schools and social services.
The report argued that the number of applicants and the short processing deadlines were incompatible with the state’s ability to absorb them.
Remix News reported last month that more than one million applications had already been submitted after the government introduced the measure.
Successful applicants would gain the right to travel within the Schengen Area, prompting criticism from conservative politicians elsewhere in Europe.
Vox leader Santiago Abascal accused Sánchez of attempting to expand the future electorate by eventually granting citizenship to large numbers of foreign residents.
Polish MEP Anna Bryłka argued that Spain’s policy could allow newly regularized migrants to move elsewhere in Europe and said the decision threatened the functioning of the Schengen system.
An earlier National Police analysis, reported by Remix News in February, estimated that between one million and 1.35 million people could qualify directly for the program.
That estimate included between 750,000 and one million migrants already living illegally in Spain, as well as up to 350,000 asylum seekers.
Applicants are generally required to show that they have lived in Spain for at least five months and do not have a criminal record.
