Undocumented migrants in Spain have been lining up on streets to gain access to legal status after the country approved a Royal Decree on April 14 that will allow around half a million migrants living in Spain without legal status to apply for residence permits and work authorization.
Immigrants across Spain are scrambling to get their paperwork together and joining long queues to apply for a one-year renewable residence permit that would put them on the path to citizenship, a process open from April 15 to June 30.
Carmen, who works long hours seven days a week in Madrid to support herself and her two daughters in Peru, is one of these migrants. Her income comes from cleaning homes through an online service, which she said takes a significant cut of the payment.
"I get six to eight euros, depending on the distance. The company that owns the application charges between 10, 12 and 15 euros from the clients," Carmen said, meaning that her income is lower than the Spanish minimum wage.
According to the Spanish government, the legal status will help protect people from abuses like this. On the day the decree was approved, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said the move shows his government is recognizing the rights of people already living in Spain.
Monica Lopez Martin, director general of the Spanish Commission for Refugees (CEAR), a non-government organization that helps refugees and migrants in the country, believes that having more people contributing to Spain's social security system can benefit the country's economy and its pension system.
"Giving legal status to 500,000 people who were already here among a population of 50 million is not an invasion. These are the people who mind our children, who care for our elderly, who help with housework. [Maybe they are] your doctors and nurses. With their taxes we will be able to invest more in health, invest more in education," she said.
The new measures apply to people who were already in Spain before Jan 1, 2026, and have lived in the country continuously for at least five months, with no criminal record or security-related concerns.
The Spanish government has said that foreigners account for around 14.1 percent of Social Security contributors by the end of 2025, and immigration has been a key driver of Spain's economic growth in recent years.
Institutions such as the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and Spain's Independent Authority for Fiscal Responsibility have said Spain needs between 200,000 and 250,000 migrants each year to offset a declining birth rate and an aging population.
Undocumented migrants in Spain line up for access to legal status
Undocumented migrants in Spain line up for access to legal status
The Meishan Area of the Giant Panda National Park in southwest China's Sichuan Province has recorded frequent appearances of wild giant pandas in recent months, reflecting the growing vitality of the local panda population and the ongoing improvement of their habitat.
The latest footage, captured by infrared cameras in the park from mid-March to mid-May of this year, recorded the pandas' daytime and nighttime activities on five separate occasions. Some of the pandas were seen roaming alone in the forest, while others were seen foraging and resting.
According to monitoring data, the frequency of wild giant panda sightings in the area has increased significantly this year, and the population has become increasingly active, fully confirming that the giant pandas in the region enjoy excellent habitat conditions and are growing steadily.
Thanks to habitat restoration efforts by local authorities in recent years, the area has witnessed steady improvements in ecological quality, continued expansion of high-quality habitats, and significant increases in the vitality and activity range of wild giant pandas.
The monitoring system has also repeatedly recorded the activities of rare wildlife such as red pandas and markhor, indicating an increasingly diverse biological community and fully demonstrating the remarkable achievements in biodiversity conservation in this area.
"Moving forward, we will continue to leverage the smart monitoring system to further strengthen the protection of giant panda habitats, improve the construction of ecological corridors, conduct precise monitoring of wild populations, and elevate biodiversity conservation efforts in the Wawushan area to new heights," said Yan Fuquan, head of the education and protection office of at the Meishan management bureau of Giant Panda National Park.
The Giant Panda National Park was officially established in 2021, spanning the three provinces of Sichuan, Shaanxi and Gansu and covering about 22,000 square km.
Since its establishment, about 72 percent of wild giant pandas have been placed under strict protection. The protected area for the panda habitat has increased from 1.39 million hectares to 2.58 million hectares. The park has integrated 73 nature reserves across the three provinces, connecting the habitats of 13 local panda populations. In addition, six ecological corridors have been built to allow pandas to move freely within the region.
Thanks to China's systematic action to better protect its national treasure, the wild giant panda population in the country has grown from about 1,100 in the 1980s to nearly 1,900, according to the 2025 data from the National Forestry and Grassland Administration.
Frequent wild panda appearances reflect habitat improvement in China's Sichuan
