Spain will hand more than one million illegal migrants residency rights in the country, a bombshell police report has found.
The report suggests the country's plan to grant legal status to the migrants could benefit twice as many people as the Government has publicly stated.
The National Centre for Immigration and Borders (CNIF), a division of Spain's national police, estimates between 750,000 and one million "irregular migrants" living in the country would seek official status under the scheme.
An additional 250,000 to 350,000 asylum seekers might also apply, according to the analysis - which says most applications would likely succeed.
This brings the potential total to between one million and 1.35 million people, El Confidencial reported.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez had previously said around 500,000 illegal migrants would benefit from the scheme.
The report warns the policy could create an "international perception of Spain as more permissive with irregular immigration".
Police analysts predict this perception would trigger "secondary movements" of between 200,000 and 250,000 undocumented migrants annually from other Schengen-area nations into Spain over the medium- to long-term.
Spanish PM Pedro Sanchez at first said 500,000 'asylum seekers' would benefit - a figure which could now double
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The assessment also forecasts a "shift of maritime migration routes" away from the central and eastern Mediterranean towards Spanish waters, increasing sea arrivals by up to 12,000 each year.
The report notes Spain has not restored internal Schengen border controls, unlike Germany, Italy and Poland.
"This is a historic day for our country," said Elma Saiz, the Minister for Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, when the Government confirmed the scheme in January.
Speaking to GB News at the time, Spanish Europe analyst Javier Villamor warned the scheme would only attract more migrants to Spain.
"More people would come. Because if they know that only being five months in Spain is enough to be considered a regular immigrant, they will come more," he told The People's Channel.
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"If they know that they will have a basic salary from the state, they will come more. If they know they don't even need to speak our language, they will come more and they will come more and more and more. We just need to look at the data."
He added: "The official number is half a million. But according to other studies, the figure could increase to as many as 840,000 - almost a million.
"And we know how this works. It's a slippery slope problem; in the future, the numbers will be much higher."
The scheme follows an agreement between Mr Sanchez's Socialist party and the far-left Podemos.
Applicants must demonstrate they were residing in Spain for at least five months before December 31, 2025.
They must also prove they have no criminal record.
Those who qualify will receive one-year residence permits, which can be renewed.
Applications open in April and close on June 30 next year.
The scheme was put in place after an agreement between Mr Sanchez's Socialist party and the far-left Podemos
| GETTYThe policy marks a major departure from other major European nations, including even Britain, which have tightened immigration controls in recent years.
Spain has run similar programmes since it returned to democracy in 1975.
El Pais reported that nine such schemes between 1986 and 2005 had already granted status to more than one million people.
A further study found foreign-born workers contributed 4.2 percentage points of Spain's 8.9 per cent GDP growth between 2022 and 2025.
Foreign workers represent approximately 14. per cent of the total workforce registered with Spain's social security system.
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