Spanish Police: 5M Illegal Aliens May Gain Legal Status by 2030

Spain faces the prospect of five million additional migrants with legal status by 2030 as a direct result of socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s mass amnesty programme, according to internal warnings issued by the country’s National Police force.

The Spanish socialist government is currently implementing a highly controversial mass amnesty scheme set to grant half a million illegal migrants legal work and residence permits. However, migration specialists within Spain’s National Police have reportedly alerted the Interior Ministry that amnesty recipients will likely exploit family reunification provisions embedded in Spanish law to bring relatives into the country over the coming years, as Breitbart News reports.

Unnamed officers from the force spoke to Spanish outlet El Español and confirmed the existence of internal reports submitted to the Ministry. In those documents, the National Police forecasts that the socialist government will ultimately bestow legal status on as many as 1.5 million illegal migrants in the years ahead—three times the number initially set to benefit from the current amnesty process.

According to El Español, the reports stress that if current trends persist at their existing pace, each of the projected 1.5 million migrants could bring an average of four family members into Spain. That calculation would result in five million more migrants residing in the country by decade’s end.

El Español noted that immigration experts within the police understood from the beginning that official illegal migrant figures were substantially lower than the data gleaned from their own intelligence operations. Police statistics had already surpassed 800,000 illegal migrants at the start of this year, the outlet reported.

Under Spanish immigration law, once a migrant secures legal resident status, they are entitled to bring spouses, children, minors, parents, or grandparents through family reunification procedures. Unnamed officers emphasised that this provision has triggered alarm within the force, particularly because proof of actual kinship is minimal. It won’t even be necessary for them to be actual relatives, the officers warned, adding that claimants need only assert family ties.

The officers voiced concerns that this loophole will spawn a commercial operation in which money changes hands for fraudulent documentation.

Time is critical, the officers cautioned, noting that amnesty beneficiaries will be able to reunite families over the next several years. They will be permitted to bring parents, partners, and even partners’ parents into Spain, the officers stated.

El Español underscored that the government’s mass amnesty policy has generated a powerful pull effect, drawing thousands of migrants from countries as distant as Pakistan and Turkey, as well as those already settled in the Balkans.

Spanish police officers reportedly cautioned at the start of 2025 that thousands of illegal migrants—many with criminal and police records—have falsely claimed to authorities that they lost their passports in an attempt to secure legal status in Spain.

One officer told El Español that illegal migrants already residing elsewhere in Europe have relocated to Spain to take advantage of the amnesty. They had previously transited through Spain en route to established communities across Europe, such as Afghans and Pakistanis in the United Kingdom, or Algerians and Moroccans in France and Belgium, the officer explained.

With information from Breitbart News