The Spanish government has taken an initiative that stands in sharp contrast to the line currently prevailing in Italy and across the European Union, not to mention the United States under Trump’s leadership. While the new European Pact on Migration and Asylum, set to enter into force this June, focuses on restricting the right to asylum and on deporting migrants without residence permits, the Sánchez government is introducing an amnesty expected to apply to some 500,000 people. Spain, moreover, already has 6.6 million legal immigrant residents, compared with Italy’s 5.4 million, within a total population of 48.6 million—around 10 million fewer than Italy’s. If acceptance of immigration were truly governed by quantitative limits (the so-called “tolerance threshold”), Spain should, in theory, have less room for new arrivals and regularizations than Italy and other countries.
In Spain, moreover, a fairly liberal approach had already been in place. After moving away from the large-scale amnesties that—much as in Italy—had enabled millions of irregular residents to come out of the shadows up until the first decade of this century, Madrid adopted a softer version of the Central and Northern European model of “quiet” regularizations: case by case, low-profile, and therefore relatively shielded from political controversy. Immigrants, after a couple of years of residence, with a clean criminal record and, ideally, a job or sufficiently stable emotional and family ties, could obtain legal status. Now the Sánchez government, at the urging of Podemos, has accelerated this policy of bringing people out of irregularity, returning to the large-scale amnesties used in the past.
Responding to an attack from Elon Musk on the issue, the Spanish leader adopted a solidaristic stance, tweeting, “Mars can wait, humanity cannot.” Yet this openness is also driven by robust pragmatic considerations—namely, the interests of the national economy. According to many observers, the contribution of immigrant workers is one of the reasons behind Spain’s strong economic performance in the current phase: GDP growth of 2.9% in 2025, more than double the EU average. Moreover, moving people from the shadow economy into legally recognized, contract-based employment increases tax and social security revenues, shrinks the underground economy, and reduces the number of foreign residents forced to survive through makeshift means or to depend on various forms of precarious assistance, including begging. Above all, it offers an alternative to falling into criminal networks. Promoting regular legal status can therefore also be seen as a policy that strengthens public safety and what is often referred to as “urban decorum.”
The Spanish approach to migration, however, is not without its contradictions. One need only think of the sometimes violent methods used to push back unwanted arrivals at the African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, along with the concessions made to the Moroccan government to secure its cooperation in policing the fences around the two cities. Yet overall, the political message coming from Madrid—despite pressure from the far-right party Vox and the traditional center-right’s drift toward increasingly hardline positions—demonstrates an ability to reconcile domestic interests with a reasonable, mutually beneficial openness to immigration.
In Italy, by contrast, the positions taken by the Meloni government and the political majority that supports it point toward an ever stronger emphasis on closure. Two recent initiatives bear this out.
The first is the security decree adopted in early February. Even at the level of political messaging, the very act of linking immigration to insecurity sends an unmistakable signal: citizens are told that immigrants are dangerous, that they must be more tightly controlled and punished more harshly, and that their presence is harmful to the country’s well-being. This framing then leads to calls for additional, even tougher rules to “defend” cities from the grip of an imagined invasion. On this basis, the security decree introduces a series of measures: the construction of new detention centers on Italian territory, even by derogating from existing regulations; streamlined procedures for deportation orders; the—hardly enforceable—requirement that detained migrants disclose their identity and country of origin; and restrictions on humanitarian protection, including for those who have established family ties.
Moreover, the prime minister has announced that a dedicated decree introducing further punitive measures on immigration will be forthcoming, including the so-called “naval blockade” advocated by the League—that is, additional obstacles to humanitarian sea rescues, targeting NGOs that have for years been in the crosshairs of sovereigntist policies.
At a level that could be described as meta-political sits the other anti-immigration initiative that has been under discussion in recent weeks: the proposed bill on “remigration and reconquest,” inspired by a similar initiative put forward by Germany’s far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) and launched in Italy by CasaPound, where it is finding growing support on the Italian right. Although the proposal speaks of incentivized voluntary returns, its underlying logic is rooted in ideas of ethnic purity and in opposition to the settlement of immigrants deemed capable of “contaminating” the nation. The bill, for example, would provide incentives for childbirth—up to €3,000 for each child “born to two Italian-citizen parents,” thereby penalizing even the children of mixed couples—and the possibility of restoring citizenship to descendants of long-ago Italian emigrants with no generational limits. It also calls for abolishing new labor entries authorized under the so-called “flow decrees,” revealing, in its own way, the contradictions in the Italian government’s current policies. The latest flow decree, in fact, provides for nearly 500,000 new labor entries over the 2026–2028 period, after the previous one (2023–2025) authorized about 450,000. Despite its declared positions, it is the very government now in office that is facilitating the arrival of new foreign workers.
This is what might be called the “illiberal paradox”: loudly proclaimed closures are counterbalanced by half-hidden openings. Nor is it enough, in order to resolve the paradox, to declare “we want to choose them ourselves.” The idea that employers can select workers who are thousands of kilometers away is a self-deception. Either those workers are already here, and the flow decrees merely serve to legalize them, or employers (including families, who are often deeply involved in hiring decisions) place their trust in someone else to mediate the relationship with potential candidates.
Setting aside the illusion of “choice,” the flow decrees function poorly. The procedure dates back to the Bossi–Fini law and is therefore more than twenty years old. It has never lived up to expectations: the Italian government has repeatedly reformed the rules, but has failed to make the recruitment system timely, efficient, or transparent. Above all, it has never abandoned the grotesque click-day lottery—a system found only in Italy, in which factors such as the quality of one’s internet connection, the speed of access, or sheer luck determine whether an application succeeds.
The priority given to security concerns not only creates a hierarchy among countries of origin, in which (theoretical) cooperation on returns counts more than professional skills, but also forces employers and candidates alike into long and exhausting procedures. The result is that workers do not arrive—or do not arrive when they are needed—given the seasonal nature of most of the jobs involved: agriculture, tourism, construction.
Moreover, the system is designed in a way that leaves room for fake employers and fictitious contracts. The government has boasted of uncovering such cases, turning them into a propaganda tool. In the meantime, however, it has imposed additional checks and slowdowns. From some countries (Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka), permits were blocked for months. The final outcome is disappointing. According to monitoring by the “Ero straniero” campaign, in 2024 only 7.8 percent of entry quotas actually resulted in residence permits and access to stable, regular employment. There was even a step backward compared with 2023, when the percentage—modest as it was—had been almost twice as high.
Finally, the flow decrees generate yet another form of irregularity: either because employers disappear, or because workers believe they have obtained a stable permit when it is in fact temporary—and at that point, they can no longer turn back.
For all this, the flow decrees amount to a half-hearted admission that immigrant workers are needed. Reconciling this faltering openness with a rhetoric that frames immigration as a security threat is an uphill task. The more migrants are criminalized, the less they will be welcomed—and the fewer opportunities they will have to integrate, for instance by finding housing and building friendships with the native population. A language of hostility and closure undermines the very meeting point between domestic needs and external labor potential that could benefit both sides.
Cover photo: Hundreds of Pakistanis queue at the Pakistani Consulate General in Barcelona, Spain, on January 30, 2026, to obtain the criminal record certificate that allows them to legalize their status in Spain and obtain a work and residence permit. (Photo by Marc Asensio / NurPhoto via AFP)
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