Amidst this harsh winter we are experiencing, not only of rains, snows, and hurricane winds (as it has been for quite some years), but also of genocides, persecution of migrants, famines, and endless wars, which invite pessimism and discouragement, a light, a flame of hope, arises to illuminate so much desolation.
The Government has given the green light to implement, through a Royal Decree, a Popular Legislative Initiative (PLI) for the Regularization of migrants who live in our country irregularly. This initiative began in 2020 and, after a hard work by thousands of volunteers, the necessary 500,000 signatures were obtained for it to be admitted for processing in Parliament. All groups voted in favor except VOX.
What’s impressive about this initiative is that it has reached its successful conclusion thanks to the mobilization of more than 120 organizations, which have given their support to anti-racist collectives and migrant communities organized in defense of their rights, working from different corners of the country to promote a new migration policy that puts the lives and rights of migrant people at the center.
The unusual thing, therefore, is that the most excluded people in our society have been the protagonists of a unprecedented victory: the regularization of at least 500,000 migrants (expected to benefit several hundred thousand more) and thus grant them security guaranteeing legal rights and security to people who already live and work in our country.
The approval of the application will grant a temporary residence authorization with the right to legal work and access to healthcare from the moment the application is submitted. Furthermore, it will automatically suspend expulsion orders or return proceedings for administrative reasons. To be eligible for the application, it is essential to have resided continuously and for a minimum of five months in Spain before December 31, 2025, a circumstance that may be proven with any public, private, or a combination of both documents.
Those of us who work with migrants know about the daily dramas they suffer and the need to resolve this demand so they can regularize their situation, obtaining a legal permit to live with some peace.
It is lamentable and repulsive that the far right continues to spread falsehoods about a supposed effect called by the regularization: “this half million regularizations will call for other millions, which will further aggravate the collapse of healthcare, housing, and security,” when, on the contrary, according to multiple studies, it will create more employment, more contributions, and more income, so that the regularization of migrants will serve as an economic engine. The emergence of employment, a reduction of the shadow economy, and an increase in tax revenues are the most visible effects of the measure announced by the Government, experts point out.
The regularization of their employment situation increases public revenues between 3,000 and 4,000 euros per foreign worker, according to several reports published in recent years.
But the most consistent people in the face of this daily tragedy, who have fought and work for the welcome and integration of immigrants arriving in our country fleeing war, hunger, persecution, lack of future, and many more supportive and aware people of this drama of our days are happy, because more than half a million people will see their irregular situation resolved in a few months.
Right now, we are an ethical benchmark for many European countries and the Trump administration, which, instead of welcoming, expel migrants and even imprison and kill those who defend them, as has just happened in the United States.
We hope we don’t take steps back, but always forward and with hope. Because Regularization is a magnificent cause successfully carried out, which is owed to so many migrant people, for justice, for dignity, for humanity.
Miguel Ángel Mesa Bouzas
Religion Digital
English version translated with AI