Reuters<\/a><\/p>\n After seven years living as an undocumented migrant in Spain, doing day jobs and staying in shanty towns, Moroccan Abdelmoujoud Erra hopes a mass amnesty launched by the leftist government may finally turn his fortunes around.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout documents you work for \u20ac5 an hour. With documents, you work legally, with more money \u2013 maybe seven or \u20ac8 an hour,\u201d said Erra, 27, in the southern Spanish province of Almer\u00eda. Undocumented migrants there gather at roundabouts hoping to be hired to pick fruit and vegetables in Europe\u2019s largest concentration of greenhouses.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Spain-Nijar-Abdelmoujoud-Erra-210426015.jpg\")
Moroccan migrant Abdelmoujoud Erra, 27, sits on a bed at a shack friend\u2019s near the site where the place they lived burned in a fire in Nijar, province of Almeria, Spain, on 21st April, 2026. PICTURE: Reuters\/Nacho Doce<\/p>\n
He is among many undocumented migrants applying for the amnesty, which could benefit hundreds of thousands and will run through June.<\/p>\n
\u201cWithout documents you work for \u20ac5 an hour. With documents, you work legally, with more money \u2013 maybe seven or \u20ac8 an hour.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2013 Moroccan migrant Abdelmoujoud Erra<\/p>\n
The policy is a pillar of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez\u2019s agenda to harness the economic benefits of migration for its ageing population, even as other countries tighten borders.<\/p>\n
But it has enraged right-wing opposition parties. The People\u2019s Party says it will saturate public services, while Vox has accused the government of seeking to replace Spanish natives.<\/p>\n
If he had had legal status, Erra said, he would have been able to pursue his dream of building a professional boxing career and to visit his family in Morocco.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve lost a lot of time. If only I had had papers earlier\u201d, he said.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Spain-Almeria-Abdelmoujoud-Erra-220426016.jpg\")
Moroccan migrant Abdelmoujoud Erra, 27, queues to buy a bus ticket to Valladolid, to obtain a vulnerability certificate to regularise migration status, in Almeria, Spain, on 22nd April, 2026. PICTURE: Reuters\/Nacho Doce<\/p>\n
Last month, a fire tore through the informal settlement where he lived, though his documents for the amnesty were saved because he had stored them at the local Red Cross office.<\/p>\n
With more than 30,000 hectares of intensive crops under plastic, Almer\u00eda is the European Union\u2019s main winter supplier of vegetables, including tomatoes and cucumbers, exporting produce worth \u20ac3 billion annually and employing around 80,000 people, according to unions and authorities.<\/p>\n
While the ultimate impact on production and labour costs is still unclear, agriculture business groups and unions say they hope it will help address a shortage of workers.<\/p>\n
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Andr\u00e9s G\u00f3ngora, coordinator of farmers\u2019 union COAG, acknowledged that the sector employs some migrants in the country illegally and said the amnesty would provide stability. Having a larger workforce might allow for the planting of more labour-intensive crops and foster social cohesion, he added.<\/p>\n
Charities have long criticised conditions around Almer\u00eda, estimating around 10,000 migrants live in substandard housing and that at least 70 per cent of the workforce is undocumented.<\/p>\n
Spain\u2019s 50 million-strong population has swelled in recent years, fuelled by migration. Roughly 840,000 undocumented migrants are currently in the workforce, thinktank Funcas estimates.<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Spain-Almeria-shanty-town-240426017.jpg\")
An undocumented migrant from Morocco uses an electric scooter to transport water on a canister in a shanty town after returning of his work in a plastic-covered greenhouse in Almeria province, home to Europe\u2019s largest concentration of agricultural greenhouses, in Nijar, Spain, on 24th April, 2026. PICTURE: Reuters\/Nacho Doce<\/p>\n
Among them is 35-year-old Ghanaian Michael Aymaga, who lives in a migrant settlement outside the town of Nijar, with intermittent power supply and limited water access.<\/p>\n
He is overjoyed by the amnesty and says he wants to contribute to his new home. \u201cI would definitely use all my skills and everything I have to help Spain [become] a better Spain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"HORACI GARCIA and NACHO DOCE, of Reuters, report on the hopes of undocumented migrants in Spain amid an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29119,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1873,14656,205,14657,17,3852],"class_list":["post-29118","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-almeria","tag-migrant-amnesty","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-peoples-party","tag-spain","tag-undocumented-migrants"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29118","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29118"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29118\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29119"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29118"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29118"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29118"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}