After years of requesting the transfer of migrant minors from the Canary Islands without reaching a solution, with a collapsed reception network and after the blockage of the reform of the immigration law, the Executive of the Canary Islands issued an order to the State last week. Given the saturation of its structures, its Board of Directors agreed that the NGOs that manage its centers would no longer receive children or adolescents, unless otherwise indicated by the regional government. Days passed and, in practice, the Canary Islands continued to receive newly arrived foreign children, but the approved text alerted the Spanish Network for Aid to Immigration and Refugees. The NGO fears the possible consequences for migrant children, as well as the possible replication of the strategy in other regional governments, which is why it has taken the agreement to court for alleged violation of fundamental rights.
The organization filed this Tuesday before the High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands a contentious administrative appeal against the agreement of the Government of the Canary Islands. The executive of the island intended to entrust their care to the State based on an interpretation of police protocols, even though the regulations specify the responsibility of the autonomies in the care of all minors in a situation of helplessness, including foreigners, whatever they may be. their administrative situation.
In the appeal that elDiario.es has had access to, the Network bases its complaint on the fact that the pact is “contrary to the fundamental rights of minors and the best interests of minors”, especially children whose reception could be denied due to this agreement. For the NGO, the decision can generate “a state of helplessness” in all areas for minors who “must immediately protect them by order of the security forces or the juvenile prosecutor’s office”. In addition, the organization adds the incompetence of the Canary Islands Government Council to adopt a measure that, as it points out, “was not on the agenda” of the session in which it was adopted, so that the decision “dispenses with the usual administrative procedure” and the control measures that the civil service can provide.
“This decision by the Government of the Canary Islands not only does not comply with legal standards, but is contrary to a large number of international and state constitutional standards and to Canary Island legislation itself,” argues the appeal to which elDiario.es has had access. According to the NGO in its complaint, the agreement may represent “a kind of halt in the processes of assistance to minors” and “truncates the chain of guardianship and transfer of minors between coastal devices, the prosecutor’s office, the police and the security forces.” . . security of the State and the current operators of the system.
In its agreement, the Canarian Government undertook to inform the NGOs responsible for caring for minors that “they will not receive new migrants at the expense of this autonomous community, unless there is prior communication of compliance or express authorisation from the competent regional authorities”. This guideline, they stressed, would aim to “protect the interests” of children and adolescents who are already being cared for in their reception centres, which have been saturated due to the increase in irregular arrivals to the islands in the last year.
The pact requires the State to “fulfil its obligations” in the reception of unaccompanied foreign minors. Specifically, the Government of the Canary Islands refers to the application of the framework protocol that regulates the actions of collection and delivery of migrant minors after their detection. Currently, when a person apparently a minor arrives in the Canary Islands, the National Police, responsible for their identification and custody, directly directs the children to the corresponding reception centre, under regional jurisdiction. In this sense, the Regional Executive considers that the State is not strictly complying with the protocols, which do not provide that the Police can automatically send the NGOs that manage the regional reception centres. According to it, it is up to it to take measures to protect the workers of these legal entities and of the autonomous community from possible legal risks.
In this sense, the Canary Islands Executive has asked the State to respect the established protocol before making available to them the new minors arriving in Cayuco. All the political parties of the community, including the PSOE and Nueva Canarias, in opposition, have expressed their support for the Clavijo government in the decision to demand compliance with the protocols and to protect the workers of the reception centers and the collaborating NGOs from possible criminal consequences.
To explain this agreement, the spokesman for the regional government, Alfonso Cabello, explained last week that the NGOs had received “pressures” by the police and the juvenile prosecutor’s office to take care of the children and adolescents who have arrived on El Hierro in recent days. However, the island has 150 places and already houses 285 minors.
The Spanish Immigration Network considers that the content of the pact “will cancel the chain of custody of minors that offers them guarantees of their rights”, for which the Government Council of the Canary Islands would not have jurisdiction according to its argument. “The regulations cannot be modified or eliminated in such a way as to generate misleading interpretations and contrary to the norm. […] “makes it impossible by the facts to receive and protect properly the rights of minors who must be placed under their guardianship after identification.” The NGO insists that, if the pact were applied, it would directly violate “the fundamental rights of minors.”
A few days after the announcement, the president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, guaranteed that the archipelago would welcome the minor migrants arriving on the islands, despite what is established in the pact. However, he considered that these children who arrived on September 2 are the responsibility of the central government since they are in police custody, so in his opinion it would not be a situation of helplessness. The nationalist leader assured that he would demand a full police report to accept a minor.
Although this currently has no effect on the reception of minors, the Spanish Immigration Network defends having filed the complaint due to the possible risks that its application could entail, but also for fear that other regional governments will follow in the same footsteps as the Canary Islands and conclude similar agreements. “The autonomous government cannot, unilaterally and through action, suspend, hinder or modify the obligations incumbent on it, doing nothing would be tantamount to inviting any institution to not comply with the rules that, in the field of childhood, have automatisms to, precisely, defend the best interests of the minor”, says Rafael Escudero, general director of the NGO. “We sympathize with the situation of the Canary Islands and we are in favor of the relocation plans and programs but we cannot validate that, in the face of the current blockade, no autonomous community decides to suspend compliance with the actions invoking that excluding is best for the best interests of the minor”.
Change of interlocutor
After the open rupture with the central government, the president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo (Canarian Coalition), has changed his main interlocutor in his attempt to obtain the necessary support to transport the migrant minors arriving in the archipelago through the rest of Spain. If previously he asked the Popular Party to adhere to what had been negotiated with the central government, he has now opted for the opposite strategy. The Canarian leader has signed an agreement with the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, with the aim of unblocking the distribution of these children and adolescents, after it was precisely the popular ones who reversed, with Junts and Vox, the reform of the Immigration Law, the way in which the regional and state governments defended the approval of the compulsory distribution system.
The Government of the Canary Islands has supported several of the demands repeated by the Popular Party to justify its rejection of the reform of the Immigration Law that Clavijo intended to carry out last July with the State Government. Among them, the declaration of a migratory emergency throughout Spain, with the aim of facilitating public procurement related to the reception of migrants; the convening of the Conference of Presidents; the provision of “sufficient” funding to the autonomous communities to house migrant minors and an urgent appeal to the Sectoral Conference on Children to agree on the distribution criteria with all the autonomous communities.
The pact also includes a point that had so far been forcefully rejected by Clavijo in the previous negotiation process of the reform of the immigration law: the reference to the prior confirmation of the minority of children distributed among the autonomous communities. Until now, the president of the Canary Islands has always insisted that children and adolescents be transferred to the peninsula even if there were doubts about their age, while the communities governed by the PP insisted that the age of minors should not be questioned before proceeding with the transfer. distribution, so they should have undergone age determination tests beforehand if necessary. The island government opposed this due to the blockage existing in the archipelago regarding these medical examinations, which could delay the referral of children in an emergency, but after his meeting with Feijóo, he accepted the popular request.
