Stranded in Spain: Why the World Needs a Global Interoperable Immigration System

The recent distressing ordeal involving young South African footballers stranded in Spain following a youth tournament has shone a powerful spotlight on a systemic failure not just of one academy or government, but of global immigration and travel systems as a whole.

While the emotional weight of this story rests on the shoulders of anxious parents and bewildered children, it also exposes a glaring policy gap: the lack of a global interoperable immigration verification system that ensures travel compliance, accountability, and above all, protection of vulnerable travellers especially minors.

Today’s world is connected by technology and fragmented by bureaucracy. Children can book a flight across continents with a few taps on a smartphone, but immigration checks at airports remain deeply national, paper-based, and reactive. The consequence? A group of children who had already competed in an international tournament were unable to return home, not due to crime or misconduct, but because there was no proactive system to verify critical travel logistics like confirmed return flight tickets, valid proof of accommodation for the duration of stay, and verified source of daily expenses and adult supervision.

This isn’t a Spanish issue, nor a South African one—it’s a global failure. Immigration systems today do not “talk” to one another. There’s no shared protocol for high-risk or vulnerable travel groups, especially involving minors. And there’s certainly no universally enforced mechanism for pre-travel verification across origin, transit, and destination countries.

We need a digitally enabled, globally interoperable immigration compliance framework that ensures that before departure, return tickets are validated and locked (not just paid but verified through airline systems), proof of accommodation and living expenses is confirmed by independent or certified platforms, and chaperone or guardian credentials are vetted particularly for school groups, academies, or amateur sports teams. Such a system should work in tandem with digital identity and visa platforms, and be governed by multilateral agreement between countries, much like international air traffic protocols or cross-border banking standards.

The young footballers stranded in Spain represent thousands of others globally students, athletes, refugees, and seasonal workers whose mobility makes them more susceptible to bureaucratic limbo and logistical errors. Immigration systems should adopt a “vulnerable traveller protocol,” a layered system of checks and real-time alerts that activate when minors or dependent groups face emergencies abroad. We have the digital tools. We lack the political will and international coordination.

If there is any silver lining in this crisis, it’s that it presents an opportunity for cooperation. South Africa, like many emerging economies, has the policy innovation capacity to champion a proposal at forums such as the G20, the African Union, or BRICS. The EU, too, can benefit from collaborating on interoperable immigration systems with trusted international partners. Governments, travel platforms, airlines, and youth institutions must co-design a system that does not wait for a child to go missing or stranded before it acts.

The distress of Cape Town parents and their children in Spain is real, preventable, and emblematic of a broken travel ecosystem. If we are serious about building a connected, safe, and inclusive world, we must ensure that global mobility is matched with global accountability. The time has come to modernise immigration with interoperable, proactive systems that protect, verify, and unify not just control.

* Professor Eldrid Jordaan is a South African technologist, academic, and global speaker known for advancing digital governance and inclusion. He founded GovChat, co-founded Suppple PLC—a £200 million AI civic tech firm—and serves as Professor of Practice at Johannesburg Business School.

** The views expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of IOL or Independent Media.