Welcome to Spain

After a military coup in his native Mali in 2022, Sady Traoré said he fled the country for the Canary Islands, a Spanish archipelago off the coast of West Africa. Now 28, he works in the citrus groves of eastern Spain. He hasn’t been able to secure an appointment to apply for Spanish asylum.

Traoré, and hundreds of thousands of other undocumented workers in Spain, got good news yesterday. The Spanish government will give many of them a way to apply for renewable residency permits.

It will turn its illegal immigrants into legal ones.

“It brings me closer to my dream, and the dream of many others like me,” Traoré told our reporter, José Bautista.

The government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, a Socialist, described the measure as critical to Spain’s economic future. Migrant labor plays a large part in the country’s economy. Spain’s minister for migration said it would have an impact “on our social cohesion, well-being, and also on the economy.”

Spain’s opposition leaders largely disagreed. Vox, a far-right party, said it would take the government to court over the decision. Its leader said Sánchez was “accelerating an invasion.”

An outlier

Spain’s decision is at odds with the posture toward immigration taken by many Western governments, with widespread public support. Britain recently tightened its rules surrounding refugees. Italy declared that it wanted to detain asylum seekers in Albania while it reviewed their claims. Greece jails those who remain in the country after it rejects their claims.