New official information from Spain’s National Institute of Statistics (INE) revealed 20 percent of the people living in Spain was born in another country, with foreign-born population surging over the past few years, the newspaper El País reported on Tuesday.
El País explained that Spain now has ten million foreigners living in the country — which translates to one in five individuals. INE’s statistics, quoted by the newspaper, confirm that foreign-born population in Spain has dramatically grown from 2002 onwards. The amount of foreign-born in Spain increased by two million just in the past three years alone.
The statistics reportedly indicate that roughly half of the foreigners come from the Americas, with 27 percent coming from Europe, 17 percent from Africa, and six percent from Asia.
At a per-country of origin level, Morocco leads the chart with 1.1 million of its national now living in Spanish territory — and amount that, El País pointed out, has duplicated over the past 20 years. Colombia stands in second place with nearly a million, followed by Venezuela in third place with about 700,000 of its nationals now living in Spain.
El País noted that while Romania is in fourth place on the list, it has seen its foreign-born population in Spain notably reduced, going from 750,000 in 2012 to about 500,000 registered residents per INE’s statistics. Per the statistics, 26 percent Spain’s entire population are foreign-born individuals between the ages of 20 and 64.
The new statistical report comes right as the socialist administration of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is ramping up its mass amnesty plans for 500,000 illegal migrants, which, according to El País, could happen as early as this Tuesday.
The Spanish government is planning to grant mass amnesty to half a million illegals despite despite an absolute majority of the Spanish parliament and nearly 70 percent of Spaniards being against the amnesty, only requiring that the illegal migrants comply with a short list of very lax requirements, such as proving that they have been living in Spain for a certain period of time, have a valid passport, and have no criminal record.
Last week, the European Commissioner for Asylum and Migration Magnus Brunner reportedly warned through internal EU parliament documentation that Sánchez’s mass amnesty plans may have wider “consequences” for the European Union.
Sánchez is planning to implement the mass amnesty through a Royal Decree, which allows him to bypass the need from parliamentary approval. While it is expected that 500,000 illegal migrants will become beneficiaries of the amnesty, the Spanish government is reportedly expecting to process as many as 750,000 requests.
El País noted that the Spanish think-tank Funcas estimated that about 840,000 illegal migrants are presently in Spain — a group that in addition to having skyrocketed “eightfold” since 2017, represents roughly 17 percent of all non-EU foreigners presently living in the country per the think-tank’s estimations.
Funcas is reportedly expecting that a large majority of the soon-to-be beneficiaries of Sánchez’s mass amnesty will come from Colombia, Peru, and Honduras, as these are the three countries with the highest disproportion between the number of migrants with legal residence in Spain and those illegally in the country.
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