The third vice president of the Government of Navarra and counselor of Housing, Youth, and Migration Policies, Begoña Alfaro, expressed on Tuesday a "positive" assessment of the extraordinary regularization process, although she admitted that there have been "difficulties," as there will be migrant people who "will not be able to regularize their situation." As she pointed out, "special and very complex situations have occurred with people from certain nationalities such as Algerian, and the group of people in irregular situation will continue to grow over time and we will have to face that situation."
In a parliamentary committee appearance requested by EH Bildu, Alfaro recalled that "the Government of Navarra understood that granting rights to its citizens was a priority." In contrast, she pointed out that "in the Spanish communities governed by the right, the exact opposite thesis was adopted," and emphasized that Navarra was the only community that "has launched economic subsidies for social entities of the third sector and the unions that registered as collaborating entities in matters of immigration for this process."
The counselor detailed that, until June 30, 2026, 14,886 applications had been registered in Navarra, out of a total of 1,174,978 in the entire State, which represents 1.26%. Among the applications submitted in the Foral Community, the main country of origin was Colombia, with 26.6%, something that, as she indicated, "corresponds with the data we have on migration from the last years of this Latin American country that has become the place of greatest migration to Navarra in recent times, surpassing Morocco."
She also detailed that the second country of origin was Morocco, with 19.8%, followed by Peru, with 11%, and in fourth place Algeria, with 8.9%. Regarding Algerian people, she explained that they faced "a special difficulty in accessing the issuance of criminal certificates since, unlike other countries, these had to go through the approval of the Spanish consulate in Algiers, which was completely overwhelmed." After these four nationalities, Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Brazil, and Nigeria were positioned as "the main countries of origin of the applications submitted in Navarra although we are still waiting for more detailed reports than those already published."
Regarding the profile of the applicants, 56% were men and 43% women, while half were concentrated in the age range of 25 to 44 years, something that, according to Alfaro, "is very in line with what is common practice in migration movements where those who move are mostly young people." However, he specified that for now there is no closed information on how many of the 14,886 applications have been finally accepted or denied.
What he could specify is that "what I can point out is that 4,465 people from the regularization process were registered with Social Security in Navarra as of August 31 of this year," and that in the Navarra Employment Service, 2,007 people linked to this regularization have registered since then, "2,500 fewer than those who are already registered with Social Security." In his opinion, "it seems obvious, with all the circumstances and exceptions that may exist, that this difference is of people who were already in some type of employment relationship, but were being paid under the table."
Alfaro added that the majority of those coming from the regularization process have registered in low-skilled occupations, especially in cleaning staff (13.8%), manufacturing industry laborers (13.1%), and construction laborers (6.3%). "Of those 2,007 registered people, 441 have already been deregistered for joining the labor market in the general regime, 55 have registered as self-employed, and 22 have become fixed discontinuous," he specified.
The counselor recalled that foreign nationals represent 13.6% of the affiliation to Social Security in Navarra, "a percentage that rises much more since Social Security statistics only discriminate by nationality and not by origin, and there are tens of thousands of Navarrese of foreign origin who have obtained Spanish nationality but are people of migrant origin." In this sense, he argued that "without the 145,000 people of migrant origin living among us, Navarra would head straight for an economic crash in a matter of months."
Positions of the parliamentary groups
In the intervention turn of the groups, the parliamentarian of EH Bildu, Javier Arza, expressed his "joy" for the development of the regularization, which, he stated, allows migrant people to "live more peacefully without the insecurity that irregularity generates for them" and "also because this process has allowed to once again make visible the capacity for solidarity response that Navarre society has." At the same time, he showed his "concern" for "the lack of competencies of our Community regarding migration policies" and recalled that "we know that extraordinary regularization is not a total solution, but a partial one," for which he demanded "structural changes in our legislation regarding migration policies."
On behalf of UPN, the parliamentarian Cristina López warned that "we are seeing a significant amount of misinformation that could even cause many people to end up in irregular situations due to ignorance," for which she demanded "that the Government reinforce that information that needs to be given to all those people." She reaffirmed that "Navarre cannot be understood without the contribution in all senses, cultural, economic, demographic, and social, of migrant people, but the system, as it is designed, does not work." In her opinion, "if substantial changes are not introduced in the management of migration policies, extraordinary regularization will only be a patch."
The socialist Olga Chueca considered the data provided by Alfaro to be "good" and thanked the "proactivity" of the department, which "has done a great job of anticipation," as well as the work of municipalities and associations. She emphasized that "in terms of immigration, we advocate for an orderly, legal, and safe migration, and there will be a response so that the people who are living with us have rights and also, of course, have obligations."
From Geroa Bai, Javier Ollo highlighted the process of regularization of people who "were in an absolutely irregular situation and who are now in a regular situation, with rights and duties." He recalled that "no one disputes that this regularization had to be done, because we had thousands of people in irregular situations, without rights, with duties," and argued that "it was an inevitable process" and that "the management has been more than satisfactory." In his view, "the consequences can only be positive."
The representative of the PPN, Maribel García Malo, stated that this extraordinary process has been initiated "when the ordinary route has collapsed and the expected deadlines have not been met" and affirmed that they have been left "cold" with the information provided by Alfaro, since, in her opinion, "he has not given us much information to assess this situation." She asked, "of these 14,600 people, how many are going to achieve real and full integration into our society? What is the Government of Navarra doing, from this moment on, to achieve this?".
Finally, the parliamentarian of Contigo-Zurekin, Daniel López, emphasized that "regularization is, above all, an expansion of rights, it affects people who were already neighbors of Navarra, who were already fulfilling all their obligations" and positively assessed the known data, although "they are not complete." In his opinion, "regulation offers security and protection against abuse, because those who do not have papers, unfortunately, do not report."