Spain’s extraordinary migrant regularisation could ultimately result in around three million additional legal residents through family reunification, according to estimates by Spain’s National Police, far exceeding the government’s original projections of around 500,000 applicants.
When Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government launched the regularisation programme earlier this year, ministers said they expected between 400,000 and 500,000 undocumented migrants already living in Spain to apply for legal status.
Instead, more than 1.2 million applications were submitted before the deadline, nearly double official expectations.
Now, senior police officials warn that the long-term impact could be far greater.
According to the Professional Police Union (SPP), citing estimates by the National Police, every newly regularised migrant could subsequently become eligible to bring close family members to Spain through family reunification procedures.
That could increase the total number of beneficiaries of the regularisation process to around three million people over time.
Police representatives also criticised the Sánchez government for transferring responsibility for processing regularisation applications from the National Police to the Ministry of Migration.
They argued the move sidelines the police’s expertise in verifying applicants’ identities and documents, weakening checks on issues such as document authenticity and criminal records.
According to police sources, foreign affairs officers will now be largely limited to administrative tasks, issuing residence cards for applications already approved by the ministry.
“The system will break,” they warned.
The union also warned of an increased risk of fraud during the implementation of the programme, arguing that the unprecedented volume of applications would place considerable pressure on Spain’s immigration authorities.
“There may be cases in which people from foreign countries pay those who are already in a legal situation to let them pretend to be relatives such as a child or parents; that is, pay for certified papers,” they warn.
“Now you can see cases like this, in which they even bring witnesses, but it is detected quickly because they are not so many applicants.”
The Sánchez government has defended the measure as a response to labour shortages and demographic decline, arguing that bringing undocumented migrants into the legal economy will boost tax revenues, improve labour protections and help sustain Spain’s welfare system.
Ministers have also maintained that the programme applies to migrants already living in Spain rather than encouraging new arrivals.
The regularisation marks Spain’s seventh such programme in four decades and is one of the largest ever undertaken in Europe.
It comes as many other EU member states have tightened migration policies and increased deportations of failed asylum seekers.
The announcement has nevertheless fuelled criticism from opposition parties and police representatives, who argue that the eventual impact of family reunification has been underestimated in the public debate.
