MADRID, Feb. 8 (UPI) -- Spain's conservatives criticized the Socialist government's program to legalize the status of hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants.
"If the message is that in Spain documents can be obtained and there will be programs of massive legalization, those that institute such programs are supporting the mafias that traffic in human beings," said Angel Acebes of the Popular Party.
Acebes said the new program would produce "an avalanche" of new arrivals.
Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, leader of the Socialists, said the program was needed to resolve "a problem inherited" from the conservatives, the Spanish news agency Efe reports.
The government Monday began a three-month period of legalization of 1 million undocumented workers, most of them Latin Americans.
The undocumented workers can legalize their status if an employer hires them for a minimum of six months, they can prove they've lived in Spain for six months and they do not have a criminal record.
