MADRID, April 17 -- Hope and frustration are coursing through undocumented migrants in Spain as they begin a race against time to cobble together essential paperwork under the left-wing government's new mass regularisation scheme.

"There's nothing but problems," a rueful Madeleine Castillo told AFP outside the Peruvian consulate in Madrid, which was brimming with would-be applicants on Thursday.

"We're told that everything is free, but there are formalities that are hard to complete without lawyers," added the 28-year-old mother of three young daughters, who needs a consular document to prove she is Peruvian.

At the other extreme of the emotional rollercoaster, Carolina, a 30-year-old Colombian who declined to give her surname, emerged...