Spain finalized a highly controversial move to legalize over 500,000 illegal immigrants in the country, despite stiff opposition.
The Spanish Council of Ministers approved the measure, granting legal status to over half a million illegal immigrants in a country of under 50 million. The effort was pushed for months by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s left-wing coalition government and represents the most sweeping amnesty enacted by a European Union country. Anyone who resided in the country for more than five months prior to Jan. 1, 2026, and doesn’t have a criminal record, is eligible.
Sanchez tapped into rhetoric common in left-wing circles in the United States, saying the mass legalization was needed to preserve Spanish diversity.
“These are the people who build the rich, open and diverse Spain that we have today,” he wrote in a letter posted on X. “And the country we aspire to have in the future.”
Sanchez claimed
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