CHAOS has broken out across Spain as people queue day and night to apply for Pedro Sanchez’s controversial migrant regularisation scheme.
Shocking scenes in Murcia saw applicants brawling outside a processing centre on Tuesday after a row broke out over queue-jumping, according to witnesses.
In Madrid, migrants were filmed scaling the walls of the Embassy of The Gambia on Wednesday in a desperate attempt to dodge long queues and secure paperwork for citizenship applications.
The unrest has prompted Spain’s police union, JUPOL, to speak out against the ‘massive pressure’ it has been piling on local law enforcement.
It comes after Spain unveiled plans to grant legal status to around 500,000 undocumented migrants already living in the country.
Under Sanchez’s scheme, in force since last Monday, applicants qualify if they can prove a clean criminal record and residency in Spain for at least five months before the start of 2026.
But unions and councils say the system is buckling under pressure, with at least 400 offices reporting long queues in just one week.
Ibon Dominguez, spokesperson for JUPOL, said: “We are seeing public order issues, exactly as we predicted.
“There has been a complete lack of foresight and coordination. Local councils are overwhelmed because they haven’t been involved at all,” he added.
The scheme has also ignited a political storm, with several councils and autonomous communities officially challenging Sanchez’s programme.
Community of Madrid president Isabel Diaz Ayuso has filed a legal appeal with Spain’s Supreme Court, claiming the plan ‘seriously affects’ public services, lacks funding, breaches EU law and raises ‘national security’ concerns.
The regional government of Castilla y Leon has followed suit with its own appeal.
In Huelva, mayor Pilar Miranda has demanded emergency funding after ‘massive demand’ left social services swamped, with around 1,000 applications clogging the system.
Meanwhile, civil servants’ union CSIF warned of repeated IT system blackouts, forcing some offices to shut their doors altogether.
In Barcelona, opposition figures say the city is on the brink of ‘total collapse,’ while in Valencia mayor Maria Jose Catala insists extra social workers are being drafted in to speed up services.
Opposition parties, led by Partido Popular and Vox, have blasted the plan in a scathing report, urging Sanchez to scrap it entirely.
But the PM is standing firm, arguing the policy will boost the economy and reflect ‘the reality of nearly half a million people already part of our daily lives.’
“It grants rights but also imposes obligations,” Sanchez said on the day the programme was approved by the cabinet.
“The aim is for those already part of our society to live on equal terms, contributing to our country and our model of coexistence.”
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My understanding (and I may be wrong) is that the regularization scheme requires you to have a work contract and few illegals will be able to get a legal work contract, so this is all about nothing.
Sure doesn’t look like ‘nothing’ at the moment.