{"id":49897,"date":"2026-07-03T16:03:55","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T16:03:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/49897\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T16:03:55","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T16:03:55","slug":"nearly-1-million-unauthorized-migrants-apply-for-legal-status-in-spain-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/49897\/","title":{"rendered":"Nearly 1 million unauthorized migrants apply for legal status in Spain \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some 360,000 of the over 900,000 people who applied by mid-June have already been granted provisional work and residence permits, according to officials.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez has defended<\/a> the measure as recognition for those who already contribute to Spain\u2019s economy, but the legalization scheme has been challenged by the center-right People\u2019s Party and far-right Vox group. Last month, the country\u2019s Supreme Court rejected a request to provisionally suspend the decree.<\/p>\n

The mass legalization puts Madrid at odds with the migration policy currently favored in Brussels.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, the EU finalized a sweeping overhaul<\/a> of its migration system, paving the way for faster returns, stricter border procedures and so-called return hubs<\/a> outside the bloc for rejected asylum seekers. Several EU governments have already called for the centers to be set up quickly, with countries including Denmark, Austria, Greece, Germany and the Netherlands leading<\/a> the push.<\/p>\n

In a letter<\/a> to the permanent representatives of the bloc\u2019s member countries, earlier this month, the Spanish government expressed its opposition to the new policies, citing \u201cthe serious legal, foreign relations and operational\u00a0doubts raised by the\u00a0return centers, and the lack of proportionality of certain measures.\u201d The country instead called for the EU to adopt migration rules that are grounded in a \u201cfull respect for international and European Union law.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some 360,000 of the over 900,000 people who applied by mid-June have already been granted provisional work and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[21884,11350,191,21885,865,797,203,205,17,11142],"class_list":["post-49897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-spain","tag-asylum","tag-austria","tag-borders","tag-denmark","tag-germany","tag-greece","tag-migration","tag-pedro-sanchez","tag-spain","tag-the-netherlands"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49897","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=49897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/spain\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}