Spanish police report that 70 percent of Moroccan illegal immigrants seeking asylum in Ceuta now claim gay persecution, a shift unions say risks turning asylum into a loophole.
Unnamed sources inside Spain’s National Police told the newspaper ABC they have spotted a sharp change in the grounds illegal immigrants use when they file for protection in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. Breitbart reported the disclosure and the police figures that followed.
In the first stretch of arrivals, many applicants cited money troubles. They said they lacked work or simply wanted a better life in Spain. In recent weeks the dominant story flipped. A large share now alleges persecution based on homosexual orientation if returned to Morocco.
Police sources put that share at roughly 70 percent of the asylum requests now being filed in Ceuta. Moroccan nationals make up about 95 percent of the total applications. All other nationalities together account for the remaining 5 percent.
Ceuta sits on the North African coast as Spanish territory pressed against Morocco. Illegal immigrants who cross into the exclave can lodge asylum claims under Spanish procedures. Those claims then move to the Office of Asylum and Refuge for review.
As of mid-October, at least 19 grants to people who entered Ceuta were publicly known. Police confirmed five of those grants rested on alleged sexual-orientation persecution. The same disclosures put the overall rejection rate for these applications near 99 percent.
Rejection does not produce instant removal. Officials must notify the applicant before deportation can proceed. Some denied applicants leave refugee centers, slip into mountains, neighborhoods, or private homes, and become hard for police to locate.
Spain’s Unified Police Union, known as SUP, has flagged the pattern. A union spokesperson told ABC the organization is concerned about the sudden shift and knows such tactics are circulating among applicants.
"Asylum must only protect those who actually suffer persecution and not become a pathway to bypass migration laws through the use of false statements."
The same spokesperson pressed the practical problem that follows a denial.
"Because there’s no point in denying a request if the person then disappears and the police can’t locate them."
ABC laid out the standard the Office of Asylum and Refuge applies. It is not enough for an applicant simply to declare homosexual orientation. Specialists weigh the consistency of the account, personal circumstances, possible threats or violence, any documents offered, and conditions in the country of origin. They can demand clarification when contradictions appear.
Interviews and questionnaires can run as long as 15 pages. Officials look for a sufficiently substantiated risk of harm, not a bare assertion. Morocco’s Penal Code punishes sexual relations between people of the same sex with prison time, a legal fact Spanish reviewers treat as background when they assess fear of return.
Only a tiny fraction of Moroccan applicants push denied cases to Spain’s National Court, about 0.1 percent, according to the figures shared with ABC. Most claims end at the administrative stage.
National Police sources told ABC they believe information about successful motives now circulates among the migrants themselves. They also suspect third-party advice may be involved, including from unspecified non-government organizations. No specific group was named in the disclosure.
SUP wants stronger verification and more specialists so cases move faster. The union’s position is straightforward: real persecution deserves protection; false statements should not open a side door around migration law.
Comparable patterns have already drawn attention in the United Kingdom. A BBC report in April described a shadow industry that helped migrants pretend to be gay to bolster British asylum claims. Separate coverage later highlighted hundreds of Pakistan-origin applicants making similar sexual-orientation arguments. Spanish police now see the same claim type dominate filings in Ceuta.
Near-total rejection sounds decisive on paper. In practice the system leaks. An applicant who vanishes after a denial forces police into a manhunt before any deportation order can be carried out. That gap is why SUP keeps calling for more resources and tighter follow-through.
Islam is the faith of more than 99 percent of Morocco’s population. Spanish authorities still must judge each file on its own evidence of personal risk. The police concern is not the existence of genuine cases; it is the sudden volume of identical claims that arrived after economic stories stopped working.
No named officers, applicants, or NGO staff appear in the public account. The core numbers, the 70 percent figure, the 95 percent Moroccan share, the 19 known grants, the five orientation-based approvals, and the 99 percent rejection rate, all trace to the National Police sources who spoke to ABC and the union comments that followed.
Asylum exists to shield people who face real danger. When large numbers of illegal immigrants suddenly discover the same protected ground after earlier economic pitches fail, border states have every reason to tighten interviews, track absconders, and refuse to let a humanitarian rule become a routine work-around.
