Spain Launches Program To Legalize Up To Half A Million Migrants

SPAIN – Spain has kicked off a program aimed at granting legal status to 500,000 undocumented migrants.

Long queues were seen in southern Spain as an in‑person window for a mass amnesty programme for undocumented migrants opened on Monday.

The amnesty is a cornerstone of socialist prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s plan to harness the economic benefits of migration to compensate for Spain’s ageing population.

Foreign arrivals in Spain have risen to 1 million a year from around 300,000 a year over the past decade. Migrants have filled three of every four new jobs created since 2019.