Vatican Calls for ‘Mass Regularisation’ of Illegal Migrants in Spain

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Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.

ROME — The Vatican wants Spain to undertake a “mass regularisation” of its illegal immigrants, according to the Holy See’s undersecretary for migrants and refugees.

“In Spain, mass regularisation can be a solution that benefits everyone,” said Father Fabio Baggio during an online forum last week with representatives from Spanish Catholic dioceses in charge of immigrants.

Representatives of the far-left Spanish political alliance Unidas Podemos (“United We Can”), comprising Podemos, United Left, and other left-wing parties, immediately embraced the Vatican solution, noting that it coincides exactly what the Spanish Left has been calling for.

Podemos, whose general secretary Pablo Iglesias was listed by George Soros’ Open Societies NGO as a “reliable ally,” has already launched its own proposal for universal amnesty and citizenship “for all those migrants who have lived through the epidemic with us.”

The party calls for “regulatory provisions that allow ending the irregularity of all people, whatever their administrative situation, who were on Spanish soil the day the state of alert was declared,” the only solution that is “correct and decent from the point of view of social justice and human rights.”

This universal regularisation of all immigrants is both “an imperative of justice” and “the right decision from the health and economic point of view,” the group insists.

After the announcement of the Vatican’s support for mass regularization, the spokesman for Unidas Podemos, Pablo Echenique, tweeted a message to the leaders of the centre-right Partido Popular (Pablo Casado Blanco) and the nationalist Vox party (Santiago Abascal), urging them as Catholics to follow the Vatican’s lead and welcome the call for universal amnesty and citizenship.

In his address last week, the Vatican’s Father Baggio said that there would be “massive migratory flows stemming from people’s desire to find a solution to their economic problems” following the coronavirus pandemic, and urged nations to welcome them and rejected a “new protectionism” against unchecked immigration in Europe.

“We think that many countries will have restricted entry, as they have done at this time, without promoting regular channels of immigration… to give priority to their nationals,” the priest warned. “This rise of ‘new protectionism’ could cause an increase in irregular channels of immigration.”

“There are many migrant workers — thousands — who have had to return to their homeland, lost their jobs, stopped sending remittances to their families, and that is why we have families in crisis and entire nations that are facing crises of returning migrants,” he said. “The pandemic has affected all people, yes, but the most vulnerable in a more particular way.”

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