A Spanish immigration amnesty drew 1.2 million applicants, double the expected number.
Madrid is unusual in Europe in maintaining an open immigration policy; elsewhere, governments, under pressure from populist anti-migrant parties, are closing borders. Spain’s incumbent socialist government is facing challenges, but Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez argues that migration is economically necessary given the country’s aging population.
The largest group of undocumented migrants is Latin American, but the single largest foreign-born population is Moroccan, which has largely been the target of the backlash against migration in Spain. The hard-right Vox party at one stage even reached out to Latinos, now a sizable voting bloc, assuming that Catholic, Evangelical, and anti-Communist members of those communities would share right-wing values.