Migrants Abandon Children on Spanish Holidays So They Can Claim Asylum
26th October 2025
Migrants are travelling to Spain on tourist visas and abandoning their children so that their families can claim asylum, Spanish police have said.
The parents leave their children outside police stations and children’s homes before flying home so they can be taken into state care as refugees, police in the east coast province of Tarragona said.
They aim to play the system and use the children to secure family reunification at a later date, authorities warned.
Police said they uncovered the “sophisticated” operation and have now arrested 30 people accused of abandoning their children.The total scale of the social security fraud could amount to £1.3 million, a spokesman for national police in Spain’s Catalonia region, covering Tarragona, said.