In a country with a broken pension system that struggles to pay benefits to retirees, an injection of young laborers became crucial to increase tax revenue and keep the program afloat.

It’s not the first time this country has launched a program to legalize migrants; previous experiences have shown that subsidies and benefit programs are not overwhelmed with petitions when people are legalized. On the contrary, the nation gains new taxpayers and a more stable workforce.

It’s also proving that opening a door does not automatically cause mass arrivals of immigrants. To apply for legalization, migrants must prove they have lived in the country for at least five months, have no criminal record and present a clean background check from their country of origin.

This is not a tale of my imagination. It’s currently happening in a First World country on the other side of the globe: Spain.

With a new legalization program that aims to regularize half a million migrants already living there, Spain is proving that immigration is a strategic investment, not a police matter. By “resetting the counter” and legalizing people who are already working and contributing to the economy, Spain wins. Employers win. Migrants win. And the pension system, heading for collapse, gets a desperately needed lifeline.

Meanwhile, here in the United States, our federal government continues a war against migrants who have made a life in this country. Instead of treating immigration as an economic and demographic reality, Washington is wasting billions of dollars on deportations that could ironically choke off the nation’s own growth.

Let’s be clear: Our country is not simply targeting immigrants with serious criminal backgrounds, as promised during election cycles. What we have seen in the last year is a systematic offensive against Brown communities, including legal residents and even American citizens. The federal government is indoctrinating a message of fear and false nationalism, destroying families, traumatizing children and trying to convince the public that this is what “security” looks like.

Yes, the undocumented population in the United States is far larger than the half a million Spain plans to legalize. But the reason it’s so large is not because people “invaded.” It’s because for more than 40 years we have played a cynical game that turned illegality into a profitable criminal industry.

Smugglers charge thousands of dollars to transport migrants by land, air, or sea in extremely dangerous conditions, and this business has cost thousands of innocent lives. Our policies created the black market, and then we blame the victims of it.

Spain’s reform is doing the opposite. It’s converting “ghost workers” into taxpayers. It’s an integration strategy that stands in sharp contrast to the deterrence-and-deportation model we currently have in the United States. Instead of pouring money into raids, detention centers and flights to deport people who are already embedded in communities and industries, Spain will charge a minimal fee to register migrants. With a signature and a modest payment, the government unlocks a new stream of revenue to fund pensions, public services and social stability.

And here is the part that should make American policymakers uncomfortable: Spain’s health care system already provides universal coverage for nearly all residents, free or at very low cost. The country is not collapsing under the weight of migrants. It’s managing migration as a policy tool, not as a moral panic.

This is what pragmatism looks like. Spain is facing an aging population, a shrinking workforce and a pension crisis. Instead of pretending the problem does not exist, it’s doing what economists have urged for decades: increasing the ratio of workers to retirees to keep the system healthy. Legalizing people who are already there is cheaper, safer and more humane than hunting them down.

The United States is facing a similar demographic reality. Baby boomers are retiring. Birth rates are falling. Entire industries, from agriculture to construction to caregiving, depend on immigrant labor. Yet our political conversation is stuck in slogans, walls and raids, as if the economy could function without the people who harvest our food, clean our hotels, build our homes and care for our elderly.

Spain is not perfect, and legalization of migrants alone will not solve all problems. But its policy sends a powerful message: Immigrants are not a threat to be eradicated; they are a resource to be integrated. That mindset difference is everything.

We can continue spending billions to deport workers and tear families apart, or we can do what Spain is doing: acknowledge reality, legalize people who are already contributing, and strengthen our economy and federal budget in the process. One approach is driven by fear. The other is driven by data, demographics and basic common sense.

History will judge which path was smarter.

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Tania Navarro is community opinion editor at The San Diego Union-Tribune. She is a transfronteriza who lives on both sides of the border.

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