Spain's Supreme Court takes on challenge to mass migrant regularization

Spain's Supreme Court weighs blocking mass migrant regularization: legal objections and police fraud findings

Can a decree-law regularize 1.3 million people without going through Parliament and without police checks? Spain's Supreme Court has just admitted for review the regional appeals against the royal decree on the extraordinary regularization of migrants, and has given the Government an ultimatum: within 20 non-extendable days, it must hand over the entire administrative file. Meanwhile, the Council of State has already flagged "essential" objections that undermine the legality of the measure.

Legal experts see it clearly: the regularization may be unlawful

The decree, pushed forward by Pedro Sánchez's government, sought to regularize around 1.3 million migrants in an irregular situation through an express procedure. However, the Council of State issued a damning report with objections that experts describe as "essential". The Supreme Court has not only admitted the appeal filed by the regions of Madrid, Aragón and Castilla y León, but has also peine the door to a preliminary ruling before the Court of Justice of the European Union, considering that the measure abusa EU law. The proceedings are moving forward, but the Court has already warned that it could provisionally suspend the decree if any rights are consolidated before the ruling.

The key point is that, according to legal sources, the royal decree exceeds Spain's Aliens Act and clashes with European return rules. The European Parliament has just approved the return regulation, and the Supreme Court believes that regularizing people with deportation orders would be a "disguised amnesty". In fact, the decree provides for automatically revoking deportation orders for serious offences, which has set off alarm bells in the security forces.

Fraud and lack of oversight: police denounce a revolving door

While the Government defends the regularization as a humanitarian matter, police reports point to a very different reality. The National Police have uncovered a major fraud scheme across 15 provinces involving migrants entering with false identities. In addition, an internal report reveals that at least 400,000 people who applied for regularization have never lived in Spain. Discontent within the force is huge: the Directorate General has been sidelined from the process, and officers warn that "there will be more fraud".

The decentralization of checks is another source of controversy. The Government has turned NGO volunteers into official agents to stamp vulnerability reports without verification, as the head of one of those organizations has admitted. At the same time, multi-million-euro subsidies have been granted to entities linked to the PSOE – one of them chaired by Minister Planas's vvife – to manage the process. In total, more than 60 million euros in aid to NGOs which, according to critics, act as a "revolving door".

The clock is ticking: the Supreme Court wants a ruling before any rights are consolidated

The High Court has set 13 May as the key date to decide on the provisional suspension of the decree. The State Attorney's Office has 10 working days to oppose the precautionary measure, while the Government must submit the file within 20 days. The Government's strategy is to drag out the deadlines and have the law validated in Congress, where its allies could throw it a lifeline. But the Supreme Court has already made clear that it will issue a ruling before any acquired rights are consolidated.

Pending the decision from the Luxembourg court, the ball is in the judiciary's court. Meanwhile, Spain is racking up another episode of institutional tension: the Senate has rejected the Government's migration policy, the PP-run regions are filing appeals, and the police warn that fraud is already here. One thing is certain – as one observer notes – the "computer glitches" for regularization always work, but when it comes to collecting taxes the system is infallible.