The migration crisis in the Canary Islands is putting so much pressure on the authorities that child protection mechanisms are failing. According to several autonomous communities, they are currently welcoming migrant minors from the islands and who are transferred by the central government between groups of adults.
This situation occurs due to an error in identifying your real agewhat the public prosecutor should do. And this is not a simple administrative error, but rather a contradiction with what is established by the current immigration law and which the government and the opposition are unable to reform.
According to current legislation, the central government can relocate adult migrants and take them to an autonomous community other than, in this case, the Canary Islands. However, minors must be supervised by the authorities of the autonomous community in which they have arrived.
But there are times when it is not easy to know the age of a person. In these cases, the law is exhaustive. In its article 35.3, it establishes that “in cases where the bodies and security forces of the State locate an undocumented foreigner whose minority cannot be established with certainty, he will be handed over, by the relevant child protection services, immediate attention required“.
Immediately afterwards, the rule establishes that this fact must be reported “immediately to the public prosecutor, who will arrange for your age determinationfor which the relevant health establishments will collaborate and carry out the necessary tests as a priority.”
Furthermore, in a resolution of the Ministry of the Presidency, it is established that these age tests must decide “as a preventive and urgent measureeven if possible during the custody service, if he must be placed in a child protection centre in accordance with the provisions of the legislation on the legal protection of minors or, on the contrary, if he must be subject to the ordinary regime for adults”.
Currently, this process is not carried out correctly and some minors are treated as adults and transferred to other autonomous communities.
The first to sound the alarm was Galicia. Sources from the Xunta told the media this week that, throughout the summer, more than 800 migrants arrived in the community. “Although the central government has repeatedly guaranteed that these are exclusively adults, we are informed that so far, after the relevant assessments, It has been officially determined that 15 of these alleged adults are minors.“, say the sources consulted.
“As we have been saying since the beginning of this migration crisis, and despite the collaboration of the Government Delegation in Galicia, we regret the lack of accuracy of the information provided by the Ministry. [del Interior]a problem that has a negative impact on the provision of the best care to these people,” they add.
EL ESPAÑOL has consulted other autonomous communities and they acknowledge that this is also happening to them. “It is something quite common that is happening during this crisis,” say sources from another regional government in conversation with this newspaper.
“We understand that, in order to leave the Canary Islands and access the mainland territory and the European continent, migrants declare that they are adults. Then, upon arriving in our territory, They acknowledge that they are minors“, they add. “We must make an effort to separate them, even if we understand that it is not a question of professional misconduct, but of saturation,” they emphasize.
The Interior Ministry acknowledges that if there is no document proving the age of the minor and there are “reasonable doubts”, the prosecution must ask the court for a forensic analysis that, in fact, establishes the age attributed to the migrant. “Strictly speaking, it is the judge, on the basis of the forensic expertise, who sets the age of the migrant,” they add.
