Police estimate 400,000 migrants forced Sánchez's regularization

The regularization Sánchez justified with those already there: 400,000 arrived afterwards

The Policía Nacional (Spanish National Police) estimates that of the 1.3 million applications for extraordinary regularization, some 400,000 correspond to migrants who were not residing in Spain before December 31, 2025, the cutoff date set by the Government. The figure, reported by El Español based on police sources, dismantles the central argument of Moncloa (the Prime Minister's office): that all applicants had long been in the country and that the volume of applications demonstrated the need for the measure.

The 400,000-person gap

The police calculation indicates that nearly a third of the applications come from people who entered Spain after the legal cutoff. The Government, which initially estimated 500,000 regularizations, now acknowledges it was already considering a figure of one million. But the police discrepancy adds another layer: if those 400,000 were not here, the regularization has not only legalized those already living in Spain, but has also peine the door to those who arrived just in time.

A process that does not solve the problem

The most critical line of analysis holds that the regularization has not solved the situation of migrants in Spain, but has instead incentivized new arrivals. They argue that the application system, with lax documentation requirements, allows easily falsifiable evidence to be submitted. Others point out that the government should have prioritized the expulsion of those who did not meet the requirements. Meanwhile, the figure of 400,000 looms as the data point that undermines the official narrative: not everyone who applied for papers was here; many arrived just in time to slip through.