Julia Pastor | Between April and June of this year, the government will carry out an extraordinary regularization of 500,000 immigrants. This is the seventh such process in Spain’s democratic history, following initiatives launched by both PSOE and PP governments. In the first one, conducted in 1986 under Felipe González, residency papers were granted to 38,294 people out of 43,815 applications. The most recent occurred in 2005 under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, which remains the largest to date with 576,506 legalized immigrants. In total, various regularization processes have benefited more than one million foreigners.
Funcas, in a report that has sparked significant debate in recent weeks, suggests that the number of foreigners living in Spain illegally could far exceed 500,000, potentially reaching 840,000—representing 17.2% of the foreign population from non-EU countries. It is expected that once this extraordinary process concludes, we will have a clearer picture of the undocumented population in Spain. Meanwhile, the figures are dominated by the concept of the “pull factor” (efecto llamada). Will there be a spike in irregular immigration fueled by the announced regularization?
The Director of Social Studies at Funcas remarked that “the entire Spanish migration system is creating a pull effect.” The current model assumes that after spending a long period in an irregular situation, administrative regularisation is eventually achieved through social, family, labor, or educational ties (arraigo).
In The Conversation, two Spanish researchers, Inmaculada Rodríguez-Zarzoso and Paul Elguezabal, published an analysis of migratory flows from 196 countries of origin to 32 OECD destinations between 1996 and 2022. They concluded that the “pull effect” exists, but with nuances. “It does not occur randomly or uniformly,” they explain. It depends not only on the promise of legal papers but also on the social and family networks one has in the destination country. Furthermore, the requirement of a prior residency period acts as a deterrent. “At least eight months of prior irregular residence is enough to completely neutralize the pull effect.”
Among those who deny that such an effect exists, a study by the Overseas Development Institute and an article from the University of Cambridge emphasize that migrant inflows are more closely linked to fluctuations in the economic cycles of the countries of origin. The complexity of the migratory phenomenon means that other variables also come into play, such as the condition of migratory routes—whether they are more favorable due to being shorter and safer.
A mantra is being repeated these days: people who live and work with us are going to be legal, just like us. With or without a “pull effect,” irregular migrants will continue to arrive. Let us plan, yes, but let that planning also be informed by the “dignity effect.”
