Two weeks after the in-person process for processing the extraordinary regularization of immigrants was launched, Barcelona City Council has announced that it will open Pavilion 2 of the Montjuïc Exhibition Centre from this Wednesday to speed up procedures. Since it was launched, 94,000 registration certificates and 17,000 vulnerability reports have been issued – the majority of which (10,000) have been downloaded online – as detailed this Tuesday by the Deputy Mayor for Social Rights, Raquel Gil.

When the current extraordinary regularization process for immigrants is completed, up to 150,000 people who live and in many cases work in Catalonia –almost half a million throughout Spain– will go from not having papers and living in the underground economy, to being able to formally enter the labor system with legal residence permits. The regularization will have evident consequences in many areas, such as the labor market or social security, but research also indicates that it may have consequences for security.

It is 12 at night and Nancy is watching a movie on Netflix like many Catalans do before going to sleep. She, however, is doing it from her mobile, on a street in Barcelona, ​​sheltered from the cold with a parka she uses as a blanket. Next to her is another girl sleeping on the ground covered with several layers. She has taken off her shoes to sleep and Nancy is watching her shoes, although she doesn't know her name. They met in the queue in front of the accompaniment center for the regularization of migrant people on Miquel Bleach street, which started operating on Monday to respond to high demand. Like them, this week hundreds of people living and working in Catalonia have spent the night at the doors of municipal buildings and social entities to obtain the vulnerability report or the census and complete the process to obtain residency and have a work permit in order.

The balance of the first week of the regularization of the 150,000 migrants living and in many cases working in Catalonia is summarized by 12-hour queues at the doors of town halls and social entities to obtain the vulnerability report and by the consequences of having had to improvise at the last minute to adapt to the definitive wording of the approved instruction. "They say we don't need the vulnerability report or the census, but I know people who then don't have their application accepted," says Elida Rojas, a Bolivian with two children to support.

During the Spanish rotating presidency, the Twenty-Seven approved the new EU Pact on Migration and Asylum and two years after its approval, on June 12, the transition period for states to adapt to it expires. From this date, the agreement will be fully in force throughout the European Union. The text stipulates that the irregular entry of non-EU persons must be avoided and facilitates the return of all those who do not have the right to request official protection. For human rights organizations, this is an initiative that advances towards the necropolitics of borders. In other words, betting everything on control and a hard line in reception. Sílvia Morgades, an associate professor of public international law and international relations at UPF, has thoroughly studied what this process will entail.

“Coming and kicking down the door is rewarded in Spain”, says Jorge Buxadé, Secretary General of Vox, to refer to the regularization of immigrants. But the majority of people who will benefit from this measure have not arrived by kicking down any doors: they have been inside for years, often opening and closing our doors every day —and assuming care that, as a society, we are not resolving.Around half a million people: a staggering figure. This is why Feijóo talks about "bulk" regularization and the opposition stirs up the ghost of the pull effect. But the data do not support this fear: neither the 2005 regularization —which granted papers to more than 576,000 people— nor any other regularization in Spain generated any measurable effect, according to available studies. Migration flows depend on the economic cycle and the situation in the countries of origin, not on the host country's reception policies. And the requirement for this measure is clear: you must prove that you were in Spain before January 1, 2026. It is not those who arrive who are regularized, but those who are already here — people who have been working and living in our neighborhoods for years, often without any formal right to recognize it.But, beyond the controversy, is it a good measure? Most of these people already work, but in the underground economy, without paying contributions or having labor rights. Regularization does not create new labor – it is already there – but rather removes it from precariousness and incorporates it into Social Security. Several studies find that the fiscal impact of immigration is "clearly positive": they contribute more than they receive. Giving papers to people who are already here is also the most effective way to know who they are and where they are. And, finally, a society that benefits from someone's work without recognizing any rights is an exploitative society. At a time when Europe is toughening its migration policies, Sánchez is going against the current.

The extraordinary regularization of migrants that in recent days has left Although specialists criticize the lack of transparency regarding how many people are interned, in 2024 a total of 1,863 people passed through these detention centres, according to the latest report from the Jesuit Migrant Service. Among them were 85 women and 853 applicants for international protection, and almost half were not repatriated, according to the entity. The same entity denounced in the report the lack of public information to periodically know data on internment.

The queues to carry out the procedures for the extraordinary regularization of migrants are not subsiding. Around the Citizen Attention Office (OAC) in Plaça de Sant Miquel in Barcelona, next to the City Hall, dozens of people are waiting this Friday with their sleeping bags after spending the night on the street to get the necessary documentation as soon as possible to complete the process of obtaining residence and a work permit in order. The line, up to a kilometer long, passes behind the consistory and winds through Carrer dels Templers and Plaça de Sant Jaume. Most people are carrying folders with documentation, as well as bags with food and water, prepared to spend hours there until their turn comes.

"Submitting the documents for regularization is the first step to being able to continue growing here with stability and calm." This is how Xavier, from Venezuela, explains the opportunity that regularization as an asylum seeker would mean for him. In front of the Post Office in Plaça del Doctor Letamendi in Barcelona – enabled for in-person processing since this Monday – the 31-year-old explains that he has already managed to submit all the documentation. Xavier arrived in Spain almost a year ago and, once settled in the Catalan capital, sees the approval of extraordinary regularization as another step to continue working without having to worry about his papers. A process he undertook alone. "You have to read everything very well and bring the necessary documents, but in my case it has been quite easy and quick," says Xavier.

While most authorized Post Offices are attending without remarkable incidents and by strict prior appointment migrant people who can carry out the paperwork regularization in person since this Monday, long queues are multiplying in the services that the city councils have set up to speed up mandatory procedures. Since Thursday the 16th, applications can also be made online, but it is this Monday that in-person procedures have opened. The delay in the publication of the required documents has meant that today the bulk of the 150,000 beneficiaries estimated for Catalonia are still pending to collect all the necessary documentation.In L'Hospitalet, the queue goes around the enormous La Farga building, where the social vulnerability report and the municipal population register certificate are processed. The City Council expects to attend to 1,500 people today out of the 27,000 who already live in the municipality. The first applicants began to arrive before midnight this Sunday. The sisters Sandra and María, Colombians who have resided in the city for three years and seven months, have been waiting since 4 in the morning. "If they had told us from the beginning that we needed the vulnerability, three-quarters of those of us who are here today would already have the report," they lament, without being sure that officials can respond to everyone in the queue today.

Aware of his parliamentary weakness, Pedro Sánchez and the PSOE have decided to make an all-or-nothing bet to turn the Spanish president into a progressive benchmark, both internally and internationally. For now, it's working for them, also in the State: fewer and fewer people doubt that he can complete the legislature, and the shells with which the PP thought to break his waterline (starting with the alleged judicial scandals relating to his wife, his brother, and even his late father-in-law) have rather remained wet gunpowder.Within the failed ammunition, there are also reproaches against the new regularization of immigrants, which has come into effect with the last-minute incorporation, by the Spanish government, of the criminal record certificate requirement. Requesting a criminal record certificate from people who in many cases will find it difficult to obtain it (because in their countries of origin, often impoverished and damaged by war, corruption and/or poverty, they will not be issued it) is equivalent to short-circuiting the regularization process with an administrative hurdle that, for many, may be insurmountable. This should have forced a review of the opposition's arguments against this measure, but it has not been the case: the right-wing, extreme and not-so-extreme, have once again spun the rosary of immigration as a source of crime and recidivism. Feijóo, even, resorted to the old fallacy of immigrant rapists.In our homeland, in the Catalan Countries, the reaction of again presenting immigration as a tool for Hispanization and the substitution or elimination of Catalan (or Mallorcan, or Valencian) identity, in addition to a solid imbecility, is an expression of weakness that clearly goes against the ability of Catalanism and separatism to gain supporters among newcomers. You are an immigrant arriving in the country, or who is born and grows up there, and within the political landscape you see some who accuse you of being a colon sent by someone with the purpose of liquidating the country, language, and culture: you already know who you will never want to go anywhere with.While this was happening, the Spanish president undertook a Chinese tour in which he met directly with Xi Jinping, and on his return he landed in Barcelona to host an international progressive summit (or an anti-Trump summit, as it has also been called) which obviously goes against Catalan independence and at the same time further strengthens Sánchez's role as a left-wing benchmark. It remains to be seen what content all this has (content means consequences in the form of policies) and if it has any electoral effect (traditionally, the impact of the international agenda on election results is low), but what cannot be said of Sánchez is that he is standing idly by. On the other hand, mans plegades is an expression that can be used to describe political options based on catastrophism, resentment, and discontent. For whatever reason, those who present themselves as losers do not usually generate enthusiasm.

The process to request the extraordinary regularization of migrants is already underway. From Thursday, April 16, procedures can be carried out online, and from Monday the 20th, they can also be done in person, with mandatory prior appointment, at the Social Security and Post Office branches. More than half a million people living in Catalonia and Spain irregularly can benefit from the regularization, and the procedure is open until June 30.

After demanding the tightening of criteria for the extraordinary regularization of migrants in Spain, Junts goes a step further against the measure approved by the government of Pedro Sánchez and from which half a million people will benefit. Carles Puigdemont's party has announced that it will take the regularization to Europe because it "ignores the requirement of knowing Catalan". The party has commissioned its legal department to prepare "the presentation of a complaint before the European institutions for the violation of various directives and the marginalization of a co-official language as an integration criterion", as detailed this Friday in a statement.

Less than 24 hours after the Council of Ministers approved the royal decree that will serve to regularize the situation of more than half a million immigrants throughout the State, long queues have returned in the center of Barcelona to obtain all the documentation to carry out the procedures. One of the points where a significant number of people have accumulated is the Citizen Attention Office of Barcelona in Plaça Sant Miquel, next to the cathedral. This Wednesday morning the queue to access this service goes around the building and the complaint that "things are not moving forward" is repeated. Most have been waiting for three hours. Although there are citizens waiting to carry out all kinds of procedures, there are also many people who come to do paperwork to be able to access the regularization process, which begins this Thursday, April 16, remotely.

In Spain, the process of obtaining residency and work permits is so cumbersome and complicated that carrying out extraordinary regularization processes has already become a custom. The goal is to end administrative bottlenecks and pockets of irregular immigration that, in turn, fuel the black economy and the perpetuation of situations of social vulnerability. These regularizations have been carried out by socialist and popular governments. There were them in 1986, 1991, and 1996 under Felipe González, in 2000 and 2001 under José María Aznar, and in 2005 and 2006 under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The last one, therefore, was twenty years ago, before the migratory boom after the global recession of 2008-2012.

Green light for the regularization of migrants. After the public hearing process and the mandatory reports, the Spanish government approved this Tuesday the royal decree that will serve to regularize the situation of more than half a million people who are already in the State but do not have their rights recognized. "It is an act of coherence and social justice," proclaimed the spokesperson and head of this portfolio, Elma Saiz, this Tuesday. "It is a historic measure and has all the legal guarantees," she added. How will the procedure work, however?

Isabela doesn't want to think about what will become of her life if she cannot avail herself of the extraordinary regularization that the Spanish government is to launch in the coming weeks to grant residence permits to half a million foreigners who meet criteria that, at present, are provisional. The decree approved by Pedro Sánchez's executive still has to go through the Council of State to return once more to the council of ministers. Although there are unknowns about how the fine print will turn out, Isabela is sure that hers is an impossible mission because the relevant 10 years have not passed since she completed her sentence to be able to annul her criminal record and, in the draft of the text, any stain on the criminal record is invalidating.

At the beginning of the year, the PSOE and Podemos parties agreed on a mass regularization of migrants to grant legal status to half a million people already living in Spain. They did so by drafting immigration regulations to avoid having to go through Congress, where they would have struggled to secure a majority to pass them. However, the PP has found a loophole to try to influence the Senate through the law on repeat offenses, promoted by Junts and approved last week in the upper house. The PP pushed for an amendment to toughen the conditions for the regularization of migrants, and, as ARA has learned, Junts will vote in favor this Thursday in the final vote in Congress. The regularization will still go ahead, but controls for obtaining a residence permit will be increased.

The Minister of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration and spokesperson for the Spanish government, Elma Saiz, vehemently defended the extraordinary regularization program announced by the Executive. In a conversation with the president of the Círculo de Economía (Circle of Economy), Teresa Garcia-Milà, she stated that "orderly and integrated immigration is the key to sustaining economic prosperity in the coming decades." In response to questions from Garcia-Milà, she applauded the fact that some autonomous communities, such as Catalonia, are demanding powers regarding immigration within the constitutional framework. She acknowledged that there are issues, such as healthcare and others, that require local management. Saiz participated in the Cercle after the organization published an opinion piece a few days ago calling for the regulation of migration flows and their adaptation to an economic model based on improving productivity. The minister, who congratulated the Catalan organization for opening the debate on the issue, noted that the people who will be eligible for regularization "are already here" and rejected claims by some political groups that the new arrivals will overwhelm public services. The data, she added, shows that they do not overwhelm public services, but rather "contribute to sustaining them." It is, in any case, the responsibility of public administrations to size public services according to the population, the Spanish government spokesperson said. She asserted that "when immigration is managed well, it is not a threat but an opportunity for growth and for strengthening democratic society."

Josep Sala i Cullell is a geography teacher at a high school in Norway. His first essay, Plug generation, It sparked some controversy when addressing generational power struggles. Now it returns with We are not 6 million (Portico), A book in which he calls for open discussion about immigration and criticizes the fact that we have been sold, as inevitable, a model designed to favor employers and harm workers.