Migrant regularization in Spain: who foots the bill?

Migrant regularization, a goldmine at the public's expense

Who pays the lawyer who regularizes a foreign citizen who doesn't speak a word of Spanish? The question, raised on social media after a video circulated showing a smiling lawyer after closing an immigration case, has exposed an uncomfortable reality: legal assistance for migrants involves public money, subsidies, and private fees.

The price of solidarity

Immigration legal services are not cheap. At the center of the controversy is how these law firms are funded. Some lawyers specializing in regularization cases work with funds from NGOs or from the state itself, under legal aid agreements. Others charge the client directly. The result is an ecosystem in which taxpayers end up footing part of the bill, directly or indirectly, through the duty-solicitor scheme and subsidies to the third sector.

The duty-solicitor scheme, the system through which lawyers are assigned free of charge to those who cannot afford them, covers immigration and deportation proceedings. The professionals who take these cases receive compensation from the state, often modest, along with a workload that, according to industry accounts, includes difficult clients: some don't pay, others don't understand and need the same story explained a hundred times. The question arises on its own: is this a social service or an industry?

The language and the ten-year wait

The original video shows a migrant who doesn't speak Spanish. For initial regularization, language is not a requirement: it is enough to enter legally and accumulate years of residence. Citizenship, however, requires passing language and culture exams. According to the estimates being used, that moment would not come before a decade. So the suffering that some attribute to the "invasion" has this nuance: the newly regularized migrant will remain a foreigner for citizenship purposes for a long time.

Not speaking Spanish is not unusual either: some have spent years in Spain working in environments where no Spanish is spoken, in construction, agriculture, or hospitality, and barely manage a "hello and goodbye." Regularization does not require the language; integration does not seem to be a priority of public policy either.

A business of grievances

What has stung the most is not the procedure, but the attitude. A lawyer celebrating a regularization case with a smile creates, at the very least, a contrast with the experience of much of the population stuck on waiting lists or in overwhelmed courts. The provocation is even greater when compared with other areas of free legal aid: gender violence, divorces, or housing, which have suffered years of delays and shrinking resources.

Discomfort gives way to the suspicion that some lawyers are "raking it in" thanks to the demolition economy: an immigration model where cases are simple, clients arrive on their own, and someone else pays. Perhaps that is an exaggerated view. But while some lawyers smile on social media, others are still waiting for the General Council of the Judiciary to reply on time.