The Supreme Court endorses the right to settle based on training: it encourages regular migration and combats irregular migration.
The Supreme Court has upheld the right to residency for training—currently known as socio-formative residency—which allows migrants to obtain legal status in Spain after two years of living in the country and under the commitment to train on the job. This provision, it notes, encourages regular migration and combats irregular migration.
This was the ruling of the Administrative Litigation Division of the High Court in a ruling rejecting the appeal filed in 2022 by Solidaridad, the Vox union, against the reform of the immigration regulations implemented that year. Among other changes, this reform introduced the concept of "rooted status for training," currently known as "socio-formative rooted status."
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In its appeal, the union challenged this provision because it constituted "a driving force for irregular immigration," a plea dismissed by the Court, citing "undoubtedly legitimate opinions on the content and direction of immigration policy in the new regulations, but which in no case constitute a legal violation."
In fact, the ruling emphasizes that the requirement for a two-year stay in Spain (which the plaintiff considers insufficient) seeks precisely to "combat the irregularity of foreigners in Spain."
Thus, this mechanism serves a group of people in an irregular situation, "which is intended to decrease," since "they will have regular migration channels through which this situation will be channeled."
This mechanism serves a group of people in an irregular situation, "which is intended to decrease"The Court notes that the reform of the regulations is "in accordance with the law" and "combats one of the main causes of irregular migration: the existence of an underground economy," in addition to seeking to discourage the hiring of people in an irregular situation, as justified in the preamble to the regulation.
In its ruling, the Supreme Court rejects other arguments raised by the union, such as the lack of justification for its urgent nature, which the high court does find proven; the failure to include its budgetary impact, which is reflected in the reform report; and the absence of certain mandatory reports, which the Court notes were submitted in this proceeding.
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The rapporteur of the ruling, Judge Francisco Javier Pueyo, has also repeatedly criticized the form of the appeal filed, in which the plaintiff "alleges various reasons that are improperly mixed together in a procedurally disordered manner" and fails to provide legal arguments or specifics for many of its allegations.
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