Would it be unheard of for your company to help you secure your mother's entry? Perhaps as your dependent?
It wouldn't be unheard of at all; my company is a huge global firm that does assist in transfers/relocations/etc. all of the time.
My first boss at this company had eventually been relocated temporarily to Japan for about 4 years. Our company handled the move, covered her rent in Ginza for the whole time and took care of the husband's visa paperwork in addition to (of course) hers. She no longer works here as of about 6 months ago as after many promotions here within our company she moved to do even bigger things and continues in an executive level role but now at another firm. I did consult with her a few months ago when the initial talks came up about me moving and she gave me a lot to consider.
You may recall that I was in Portugal when the stroke happened. I was supposed to be staying there for just under 3 months. I was not there for work although we have an office in Lisbon. Rather, I just wanted to work from home there to learn more about the area, determine if I 'could' work remotely in that location, and get exposure to things like housing costs/how healthcare and long term care works there, etc. In other words, I was seriously eyeing that country as a place to retire to at the time.
Many months prior to Portugal, I knew I would have to put a plan together rather than just asking 'hey, can I take my laptop with me and go abroad for 3 months?'. So I met with my boss about it, then HR, then HR referred me to Talent Deployment which is the area that really supports with relocations/transfers/etc. Between all of these meetings, the concerns from every area became clear, many of which I knew how to address, so from there I created a plan (presentation) that walked through the rationale for my requests, the benefits of me going, the risks, the risk mitigation plans, etc. etc. It included everything from what my work schedule would be (I'd keep my US hours) to how I'd cover my health insurance abroad (including medical evac, etc.) to legalities (I learned I couldn't go in to work in the local Lisbon office while there because that would trigger the need for a work visa in Portugal). It was months of me consulting with local and Portuguese attorneys, immigration firms, consulates, tax professionals, etc. etc. By the time I presented all of this, Talent Deployment was shocked I'd gone to the length I had. (And I'm glad I did take the approach I did as HR spoke about how they fire people all of the time that just take their laptops and work abroad 'for a while' without telling anyone, invoking serious risk to the company.) All of this was just for a 3 month visit.
I presented this to my boss, her leadership, HR and Talent Deployment and long story short finally got the approval to go there. In summary, because of what happened last year, I now have some exposure to this area and I know some of the people involved who make decisions regarding these moves.
I will essentially start by taking the deck from that Portugal trip and using that to create a Spain relocation plan. There might be more than one version (one for me, one for boss)..I'm not sure yet. I've been keeping a running list of question in Excel for the past ~2 months, so now at least I know I can start shooting these questions off to the right people because I am much less versed in certain Spain laws, etc. As our company is massive, I know that Talent Deployment, which also consults with Legal (because they consulted with them prior to giving me the green light to go abroad last year) will have all of the answers I need, including 'how' my mom could potentially be added to whatever work visa that is essentially likely to have to be obtained. In my very very limited searches yesterday it did appear that the company 'may' have to apply for an EU blue card for me (I mentioned this above), but it is not clear; I've done little research into this honestly. If it's an EU blue card they go obtain, it's 'possible' that my mother could go under Spain's family reunification process which works very very similar to Portugal's family reunification (which I am more well versed in because I'd been looking into that for a while fyi).
Either way, it's a bit of a relief knowing that I'm in a position where there are experts on this who already exist to take care of the visa piece because that piece for Portugal alone when I was looking into that country, really did seem overwhelming/confusing. (I spent a good portion of last year looking into D7 and now D8 visas in Portugal honestly and got to a point where I told myself it wasn't doable because I just didn't have the expertise on how to keep my current role and obtain any kind of visa applicable to Portugal - I realized that whole process would have to involve my employer and no digital nomad visa would work for my situation or mid-term goals.)
Side note, I made it very very clear at the beginning of this year that I wanted to move to Portugal and strongly strongly preferred that be where I go when these initial talks began. At that time, my boss had mentioned 3 countries that they were looking to hire talent in and Portugal was shockingly one of them (I couldn't believe it). However, Spain was also one of them and although we have offices in both locations, Spain's healthcare system is top notch and we do so much work with the Spain office. I knew there was a strong possibility she would say I could move, but Spain is where we need people right now, and that is ultimately what happened. Currently, my boss is saying that once talent is 'built up' within our Spain hub (I'm a people manager now so I'd be responsible for onboarding/training/development of employees in Spain within a certain department that make up a large portion of our organization), that Portugal 'could' be the next country we look to to build up, meaning that she has been apologetic that Portugal didn't work out, however, she feels strongly that somehow, some way, it is possible it could still happen at some point considering our country focus at this time.
I told my boss that if that happens, I want to be considered. But that in the meantime, visiting Portugal from Spain is a lot easier than visiting Portugal from the US :) And that 'if' (huge if) my mom comes with me, Spain has got one of the best healthcare systems in the 'world'. And on top of that, the topography is much much flatter than the Lisbon area which means a notable difference in accessibility for her. Lastly, I now have multiple 24-hour live-in caretaker quotes from agencies that place live-in caretakers in both Lisbon and Madrid. I was shocked to find quotes from Madrid coming in lower than Lisbon. So that's a definite 'bonus'.
Right now, there is a lotttt up in the air. I have so much to do that I kinda just want to go hide under a rock somewhere to be honest, however, I know that now I have to seriously get busy. My mom's SSDI is not likely to come through this year IMO. I need her SSDI in order for her to move because that will be what pays for her live-in caretaker. I was initially going to pay for maybe half but I realized I would be SO much better off if I made the decision to go somewhere that she could pay for her own care 100%. So I'm praying that that comes through next year because the truth is I don't have exact timelines for moving yet, but I already know that this will simply turn into a 'how soon can you reasonably get there' type of situation. I did tell my boss yesterday that I understand definitive timing is not clear, but that I will be flexible in whatever needs to happen and I ask that she/the company does the same so as to not put me in a position of asking me to move overnight since I have so much to work on. I made it clear I am serious about all of this and will now begin the work involved to initiate the move. I reiterated to her that it would be great and maybe necessary for me to do some 'back and forth' between EU and US for a while in the beginning perhaps, allowing me to get familiar with life there and set up a place to live, moving my mom there later. Ideally, this is how this will all happen but of course things remain to be seen.
The other piece to this is I am fully prepared that HR will reduce my salary as a result of this move. I have been in talks for months with a friend who lives in Portugal. His wife's company moved them there; her initial pay reduction was going to be 45% (!). But they negotiated it down to a paycut of 5%. I am meeting with him this morning (as he's a former HR executive) to begin negotiation tactic discussions because it is critical my pay not be reduced moderately or significantly. Of course, a slight pay reduction makes sense because a $100k (example) salary in southeastern US is not the same as a $100k salary in Spain.
Sorry for the novel by the way!