Half a million.
That’s the number that made headlines in April when Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist government approved plans to grant legal status to 500,000 illegal migrants.
But a leaked police report warned that the true number could be much higher, estimating that between 750,000 and 1 million illegal migrants living in Spain could apply for amnesty, in addition to 250,000 to 350,000 asylum seekers. The report described the amnesty plan’s “very intense media impact, especially in Latin America” and warned of a “highly relevant pull factor,” which we will return to in a moment.
The conservative Popular Party (PP) also disputed the government’s estimates, saying the true number could be double and calling the plan an “outrage.” Sánchez, whom The Economist has called the leader of Europe’s anti-Trump resistance, anticipating such criticism, wrote in a New York Times op-ed in January that “MAGA-style leaders may say that our country can’t handle taking in so many migrants — that this is a suicidal move, the desperate act of a collapsing country.”
Well, the numbers are starting to come in and, just as Joe Biden’s weak border enforcement in the U.S. created a “pull factor” that led to average monthly border crossings of over 100,000, Sánchez’s policies are having a similar magnet effect, far exceeding his government’s estimates.
Even though the asylum application window remains open until June 30, 900,000 applications have already been submitted, a record number for Spain. The European Conservative reports that “approximately 350,000 additional applications have been submitted since the start of June, a surge that has caught authorities off guard.” The publication notes that these numbers are much higher than the last time mass amnesty was tried in Spain, in 2005 under the Socialist government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who these days spends his time in court as the subject of a graft probe. Zapatero’s program granted 576,000 residence permits from 691,000 applications received.
Sánchez, of course, looks at every new immigrant as a potential future voter who won’t care about the mind-boggling corruption within his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). As increasing numbers of Spaniards take to the streets to demand the prime minister’s resignation, Muslim migrants are among his most loyal supporters. In the video below, we meet a Muslim store owner a minute in, with a poster of Sánchez on his shop wall, who says Muslims are “100%” going to vote for the prime minister if they become citizens. Why? Because he “stands with Iran and Palestine.” Indeed he does.
Hellbound and Down 