Aragon Ends 17-Euro Weekly Allowance for Unaccompanied Migrant Minors, Keeps Spanish Grant
Aragon's Vox-led welfare department has withdrawn the 17-euro weekly grant given to unaccompanied foreign minors in care, saving 180,000 euros per year, while Spanish minors keep theirs. Minister Sira Rego calls the move racist and refers it to the Public Prosecutor's Office for a possible hate crime.
The cut
The regional government of Aragon ordered the removal of the 17-euro weekly allowance that unaccompanied foreign minors in its care centres had been receiving. The decision, made public on Monday 27 July 2026, was taken by vice-president and deregulation minister Alejandro Nolasco of Vox. The allowance was intended to help these minors integrate both inside and outside the reception facilities. Nolasco's department said internal audits had found that the payments lacked a formal regulatory basis and amounted to 180,000 euros per year. The same grant for Spanish minors in the care system will continue.
These 180,000 euros of annual spending, which until now were used for tips for the minors, are equivalent to the cost of up to seven new places for the elderly in residences.
Political framing
Vox celebrated the move on social media, writing that public resources must go "to the Spaniards who need them most and to those who have contributed to sustaining our country." The party referred to the weekly sum as "the MENA's little weekly handout" and closed with "Vox delivers." Aragon's PP president Jorge Azcón declined to comment on the substance, stating only that the allowance had already been restricted for some minors based on their behaviour and that it was a departmental matter.
National backlash
The Spanish Ministry of Youth and Children, led by Sira Rego, sent an official communication to the Public Prosecutor's Office's Minors Unit on Monday. The ministry argued that stripping a grant only from migrant children while keeping it for Spanish ones could breach their fundamental rights, constitute discrimination on grounds of birth and race, and possibly amount to a hate crime. It cited Article 14 of the Constitution, which prohibits discrimination by origin, and Article 39, which obliges public authorities to protect children.
Taking away a weekly allowance from boys and girls who are alone in our country is one of the most repugnant things we have seen in recent years.
Rego called the measure "racist" and said it was the "direct application of the racist priority that the PP has willingly signed with Vox", adding that it "criminalises minors for not having been born here and seeks to establish first-class and second-class citizenship, like the most perverse regimes do."
Wider anti-immigration drive
The withdrawal of the allowance is the latest step in a Vox-led tightening of rules around unaccompanied migrant minors in Aragon. Since Vox returned to the regional executive, Nolasco's department has announced forensic age tests for migrant minors, reinforced security in specific reception centres, and published institutional reports focused on this group. The internal instruction to end the payments was coordinated between the director-general for deregulation, Raúl López, and the head of the Aragonese Institute of Social Services, Marta Tejero.
