Spain overwhelmed by a wave of naturalization applications

A group of children give the Republican salute as they prepare for exile during the Spanish Civil War.

This photo, whose author remains unknown, was donated to Wikimedia Commons by Olga Brocca Smith,

who dedicated it to the memory of all the victims of the Francoist dictatorship.

It was probably taken between 1936 and 1939.

More than 2.3 million descendants of exiles have applied for Spanish citizenship since 2022, a colossal influx that reveals the scale of the diasporas stemming from the Civil War and Francoism. Fueled by the Law on Democratic Memory, this wave of applications is severely straining the capacity of consulates, which are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of requests, and is once again exposing the deep divisions that continue to plague the memory of Francoism.

More than one million descendants of Spanish exiles have obtained citizenship through the Democratic Memory Law, while another 1.3 million applications are pending, bringing the total to over 2.3 million since 2022 – 4.5 times more than in 2007. Argentina leads with 40% of the applications (645,000 in Buenos Aires alone), followed by Cuba (350,000), Mexico (165,000), Brazil (150,000 in São Paulo), and the United States (120,000 in Miami). This massive influx reflects the sheer scale of the diasporas stemming from the Francoist exile and 20th-century migrations.

Promulgated on October 19, 2022, by the government of Pedro Sánchez, Law 20/2022 on Democratic Memory expands access to citizenship for the children and grandchildren of political, ideological, religious, or sexual orientation exiles, as well as for descendants of Spanish mothers who lost their citizenship before 1978. The application window, initially two years and later extended to three, closed on October 21, 2025, but appointments made before that date remain valid despite the backlog. The 178 Spanish consulates are already literally overwhelmed: outdated computer systems, reduced staff, and endless queues are creating potentially decade-long backlogs, despite an approval rate of nearly 50% and a rejection rate of less than 2%. This administrative rush, multiplied by 4.5 compared to 2007, exposes the logistical limits of an overwhelmed consular network, due to the application of a law that is itself deeply contested.

Following the 2007 law, this text aims to condemn the Francoist coup of 1936, recognize the victims of the civil war (1936-1939) and the dictatorship (1939-1975), exhume mass graves and create a prosecutor's office dedicated to forced disappearances, without repealing the 1977 amnesty. Article 20, known as the "grandchildren's law", embodies a symbolic reparation, allowing uprooted generations to rediscover their origins.

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The precedent from 2007

This is not the first time Spain has intervened to regulate the memory of the Civil War and the regime's violence. A Historical Memory Law was already approved in 2007 under the government of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (PSOE). It aimed to recognize and redress the victims of the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) and the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975), without, however, explicitly condemning the regime or repealing the 1977 amnesty.

Its main objectives included compensation for former political prisoners, orphans and children of the war; facilitating the exhumation of mass graves (more than 2,000 identified in total on the national territory); the creation of a Documentation Centre for Historical Memory in Salamanca to centralize the archives; and finally the gradual removal of Francoist symbols from public spaces.

Less ambitious than its 2022 successor, this law responded to pressure from victims' associations to break the post-Franco "pact of forgetting," which had gradually erased victims from memory through a kind of collective amnesia. It aimed to prevent any legal prosecution, but at the same time to open a limited first avenue to citizenship for some exiles.

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The 2022 law has not been without controversy, adding to the uproar caused by the millions of naturalization applications. Criticized by the right wing (PP, Vox) for its cost (estimated at billions of euros), its alleged partisan nature, and its political manipulation, the law is divisive: it prohibits tributes to Francoists and imposes a "victimhood" interpretation of the past, reigniting the memory wars between Republicans and Francoists. In post-Franco Spain, this consular rush—which has overwhelmed 178 consulates—symbolizes a belated reconciliation, but exposes the persistent fractures of a still contested transition.