Spanish PM defends plans to regularise half a million undocumented migrants

Spain’s prime minister has pushed back against critics of plans to regularise 500,000 undocumented migrants and asylum seekers, asserting that Spain is choosing the path of “dignity, community and justice”.The 46-second video, which features Pedro Sánchez speaking in English with subtitles in Spanish, was posted on social media at the weekend. “Some say we’ve gone too far, that we’re going against the current,” he said. “But I would like to ask you, when did recognising rights become something radical? When did empathy become something exceptional?”It came days after the Socialist-led coalition government approved a decree that it said would regularise half a million people. The initiative, expected to come into effect in April, made headlines around the world for its rejection of the anti-migration policies and rhetoric seen across much of Europe and the US.Sánchez said the plans would offer an orderly path to residence for those whose lives were already woven into Spain’s social fabric. “Half a million people we live with every day, at the market, on the bus, at our children’s school. People who care for our parents, work in the fields, who have built, hand in hand with us, the progress of our country,” he said.“Spain is above all a welcoming country, and this is the path we choose: dignity, community and justice.”The decree’s roots lie in a citizens’ initiative, signed by more than 700,000 people and backed by much of the Catholic Church and about 900 social organisations, presented to parliament in 2024. The initiative had languished for months until the leftwing Podemos party said last week that it had struck a deal with the Socialists to approve the plans in exchange for parliamentary support.The video, which has racked up millions of views, has seen some call Sánchez the “anti-Trump” for taking a strong pro-migration stance. The political scientist Pablo Simón said the prime minister – who relies on an unwieldy assortment of parties to push through legislation – was responding to both domestic and global pressures.“Right now, Sánchez is in a very difficult position internally, but he also knows the only way he can survive is by shifting to more leftwing positions that will allow him to absorb the electorate of the smaller parties,” said Simón, a professor at Madrid’s Carlos III University.In recent months, Sánchez has consistently tacked to the left on issues such as the war in Gaza and Trump’s push for increased defence spending. On migration it has been the same, with Sánchez embracing openness while others in Europe hardened their stances in response to pressure from the far right.As a result, Sánchez was catapulted into the global limelight as a leader of the traditional left, while parties such as the UK’s Labour party and Germany’s Social Democrats took a hard line on migration. “Within Europe, they’re projecting Spain’s image as open and, above all, against the extreme right,” Simón said.Hints of this push were evident last week, after Elon Musk retweeted a post on X that accused Sánchez of using regularisation to carry out “electoral engineering”. The world’s richest man added his reaction, writing simply: “Wow.”Sánchez was swift to hit back, reposting Musk’s comment with a reply of his own: “Mars can wait. Humanity can’t.”