Why can’t we do what Spain just did?

The Spanish government just decided to regularize the immigration status of 500,000 undocumented people, giving them official authorization to live and work in the country. When the ruling takes effect this spring, half a million people stuck in the shadows will be able to live normal lives—just like their neighbors, colleagues, and friends.

It’s an astonishing piece of news to hear in 2026. And we hope it helps you imagine a world where big, good things are actually possible. Right now, at this moment.

If you’ve ever lived in immigration limbo—even with a “powerful” passport, even for a few months—you know the psychic and practical burdens that come with it. Forget planning a future or building a life; just renting an apartment or getting a bank account can be nearly impossible. 

But the vast majority of undocumented immigrants exist in a state of precarity that’s difficult for even sympathetic Westerners to imagine. They have no refuge to which they can return if things don’t work out.

That’s why Spain’s decision to just give people relief feels so startling. We’re used to life being a series of large setbacks and small moral victories. Now suddenly, we get a glimpse of what real progress looks like. 

The question then becomes: how do we get more?

The King of Spain didn’t wake up last Tuesday and, out of the goodness of his heart, embrace immigrants because it’s the right thing to do. Hundreds of thousands of people had to shout for justice at the top of their lungs—not just for one Saturday afternoon, not only on Instagram. But they made so much noise that they couldn’t be ignored, and they refused to be pacified with empty words or symbolic gestures. 

We can learn from them. We can win.

Until this happens everywhere, Distribute Aid will continue to support refugees across Europe and the US. We encourage you to join us in taking action, whether that’s calling your representatives to demand pathways to legal status, funding legal challenges against governments that break the law to deport asylum seekers, or protecting your community by joining a local mutual aid group or neighborhood observer crew.

Quick hits

Here are a few more things you might find interesting:

• Our friends at DMDM (Distributed Medical Device Manufacturing, a nonprofit collective based in Tuscon, AZ) are raising money to send tourniquets* to street medic groups in Minneapolis. They’re at 96% of their goal—help push them across the finish line!

  • *The design of these tourniquets was created by Palestinians in Gaza in 2016, a remarkable example of how mutual aid can have global, long-term impacts at scale.

• As many as 380 people drowned trying to cross the Mediterranean in late January, following the Italian government’s crackdown on NGO rescue ships.

• In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, a community-led clean energy microgrid project in North Carolina has inspired a wave of similar projects across the US.

• A new UN report says the world is now in an era of global water bankruptcy, with water systems around the world unable to return to their previous baselines.