Spanish police have claimed that migrant women are travelling to Spain on tourist visas with their children and then abandoning them in the country, telling them to register as unaccompanied minor asylum seekers in a bid to get into the country later through family reunification.
The trend came to light after the arrest of a Moroccan woman, who was charged with child abandonment after her son went to Spanish authorities claiming to be an unaccompanied foreign minor (MENA), a report from the newspaper La Razon states.
Following a rapid investigation into the child’s case, Spanish agents were able to track down the Moroccan woman before she fled the country, and arrested her at an airport. Two others were also detained and made to give statements regarding their possible collaboration with the woman.
Group III of the Unit Against Immigration Networks and Documentary Falsehoods (U.C.R.I.F.) of the Zaragoza Brigade say they are not ruling out more arrests in the Moroccan woman’s case and are working with judicial authorities to locate potential suspects who may also be involved.
According to Spanish police, foreign women have been using a similar tactic as the Moroccan woman for years. They often come to Spain, ostensibly as tourists, and then abandon their child, who later claims to be an asylum seeker. Similar cases have been reported in different parts of Spain, predominantly in the south.
The short-term aim of the ploy is to have the child recognized as a refugee by Spanish authorities and be given residency status, while the longer-term goal is for the woman and others to be granted residency in the country through family reunification, also known as ‘chain migration.’
Another ploy to illegally enter Spain was used last year when Spanish authorities revoked the Spanish nationality of 78 babies from Moroccan mothers who gave birth in Spain but lied about the fathers of the children being Spanish citizens.
The women allegedly paid sums of cash to Spanish men who went on to claim at the Spanish Civil Registry in the North African enclave of Melilla that they were the fathers of the children. Similar to the scheme revealed this week, the mother would benefit from the child’s Spanish status and be allowed to enter Spain through family reunification.
According to the European Union border agency Frontex, a total of around 330,000 illegal entries were made last year. Chain migration has the potential to lead to far more arrivals.
According to Eurostat, the European Union statistics agency, in 2021 around a third of all the single-issue residency permits were for family reunification purposes, and over 90% of the family reunification permits were for 12 months or longer.
Family reunification can involve any direct members of families, including older parents of adults. In Italy in 2018, it was reported that as many as 60% of immigrants collecting an Italian pension had never paid into the system and never worked in Italy at all.
Chain migration has been favoured by some European governments, such as Germany, where the leftist coalition, led by Chancellor Olaf Scholz, announced in late 2021 that it wanted to radically change the country’s immigration policies and open the doors to allow migrants living in Germany who do not have full asylum status to bring in their family members.
