More than one million undocumented immigrants in Spain have applied to legalize their status under a new program to bring them into the formal labor force, Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez said on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Mr. S\u00e1nchez called the program a \u201cmilestone\u201d that would help sustain the country\u2019s aging society. The number of applicants was roughly a quarter more than the government had expected, according to government projections in April<\/a>.<\/p>\n The program, which was announced in January<\/a>, has enhanced Mr. S\u00e1nchez\u2019 reputation among the global left because it bucked a trend of Western governments, often under pressure from the far right, of restricting immigration. In particular, it heightened a standoff between President Trump and Mr. S\u00e1nchez, who, in an essay for New York Times Opinion, portrayed his program as an antidote<\/a> to policies pursued by \u201cMAGA-style leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. S\u00e1nchez and his government have described the measure as both a humane gesture to beleaguered immigrants and an essential move for Spain\u2019s economy. Spain\u2019s birthrate is among the lowest in Europe, with deaths outnumbering births among resident mothers since 2015. <\/p>\n Foreign-born workers fill labor gaps in critical economic sectors, including agriculture and tourism. More than three million people have arrived in Spain since the coronavirus pandemic \u2014 a wave that, economists and government officials say, has helped the country\u2019s economy become one of the fastest-growing in Europe. <\/p>\n \u201cWithout immigration, Spain would lose 19 percent of its G.D.P. by 2050,\u201d Mr. S\u00e1nchez said.<\/p>\n The program, which is expected to benefit mostly undocumented immigrants from Latin America, has drawn heavy criticism from the conservative opposition.<\/p>\n Alberto N\u00fa\u00f1ez Feij\u00f3o, the leader of the center-right People\u2019s Party, has called the measure \u201cinhumane, unjust and unsustainable\u201d because it may strain Spanish infrastructure and exacerbate housing shortages. Santiago Abascal, the leader of the far-right Vox party, has described it as \u201can invasion,\u201d saying it would change the character of Spanish society.<\/p>\n Undocumented immigrants who had lived in Spain for at least five months before the application period opened were eligible to apply for legal status.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than one million undocumented immigrants in Spain have applied to legalize their status under a new program…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":136809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[129],"tags":[307,13458,4203,28306,304,28305,305],"class_list":["post-136808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pedro-sanchez","tag-europe","tag-foreign-workers","tag-illegal-immigration","tag-pedro-1972","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-sanchez-perez-castejon","tag-spain"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@people\/116849089055553135","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136808","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/136809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}