Spanish immigration officials are reportedly expecting the Socialist government’s illegal migrant amnesty scheme to add upwards of three million people to the total population as a result of chain migration.
While Prime Minsiter Pedro Sánchez’s amnesty initiative was initially pitched to the public as intended to legalise around 500,000 migrants living illegally within the country, the projections were quickly raised to around 1.3 million.
However, according to the Spanish newspaper of record El Mundo, which cited “high-ranking immigration officials,” the government is now quietly expecting over 3 million people to be added to the population, given the ease with which migrants can apply to have their families join them throughout the European Union.
An unnamed immigration official told the paper: “For every person whose status is regularised, at least three more will be added if they apply for and are granted family reunification.”
The officials also briefed El Mundo on the government’s decision to remove the National Police from the scheme, noting that safety checks against migrants with criminal records who have been granted amnesty have been eroded as a result. They further claimed that there has been a complete lack of chain of command and delineation of which government agencies should be involved throughout the process.
A source within the police leadership said that the chaos was in large part a result of the government’s massive underestimation of the expected number of amnesty applicants, with between double and triple the original projections now expected. “The system is going to collapse,” warned a National Police officer.
Perhaps most concerningly, police officials warned that criminal organisations are already attempting to use the family reunification process to infiltrate the country. This is particularly pressing for Spain, given that the vast majority of non-EU migrants to the country come from South America, where many large-scale criminal cartels operate.
“There may be cases where people from foreign countries pay those who are already legally present to let them pose as relatives, like a child or parents. In other words, paying for papers and certificates. We are already seeing cases like this, where they even bring witnesses, but it’s detected quickly because there aren’t that many applicants,” an official said.
In addition to potentially allowing in large influxes of criminal foreigners, Alfredo García Miravete, the Chief Commissioner of the National Police’s General Commissariat for Immigration and Borders, previously warned that embarking on such a large-scale amnesty programme could have “significant negative effects”, including acting as a “pull factor” for other illegals seeking to gain residency in Spain.
Concerns have also been raised that illegals living in other European Union nations may travel to Spain to have their immigration status regularised within a fellow EU nation to skirt deportation efforts by fellow member states.
Miravete also noted that importing millions of people and granting amnesty to migrants who broke the law would also foment “social distrust” and strain the public services intended for citizens, including healthcare and education.
“The number of foreigners and the very short timeframes the regulations stipulate for completing the regularization process are inversely proportional to the Spanish state’s capacity to absorb them,” he stated.
However, the political left in Spain has broadly hailed Prime Minister Sánchez’s Socialist Workers’ Party government for the scheme as a means of diminishing the voting power of conservatives in the country. A member of the European Parliament for the far-left Podemos party remarked in January on the scheme: “I want there to be replacement: replacement of fascists, replacement of racists, replacement of freeloaders, and that we can do it with working people, whatever their skin colour may be.”