In a post on X, the People’s Party’s secretary general, Miguel Tellado, said “no one can be surprised that thousands of people want to enter a country that regularizes more than a million irregular immigrants overnight. Not only are we not stopping the avalanche, but we are sending the message that those who come soon will be able to become Spanish.”
Meanwhile, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the party’s high-profile president of the Madrid region, accused Sánchez of “allowing the invasion of Spain via Ceuta to try to cover up all of his trials,” referring to the tangle of corruption cases ensnaring the Socialist party.
Spain’s government hits back
A spokesperson for the foreign ministry retorted that the crisis in Ceuta had nothing to do with the government’s migration policies and pointed out that none of the people who have illegally entered Ceuta will be eligible to benefit from its legal status scheme.
“This process is based on very specific conditions, such as proof of residency in Spain before January 1, 2026, and having resided in Spain for five consecutive months at the time of application,” said the spokesperson. Moreover, the deadline for filing applications for the scheme, which was launched in April, was in June.
The Sánchez government has defended the legalization scheme as a necessary measure to ensure the country’s long-term economic growth amid declining birth rates, and the move was backed by unlikely allies like Spain’s conservative employers’ association and the Catholic Church.
But the scheme is contentious domestically, with some polls showing over half of Spaniards believe the country already hosts too many foreigners. It has also drawn criticism from figures like Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who challenged Sánchez’s policies during a meeting of European leaders last month.