The President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo (CC), will propose this Monday to his Government Council to open “a legal debate” with the State due to the “failure to perform its duties” that he considers to be practicing in matters of immigration. and due to the “lack of responses” to your request to share custody of minors. It should be remembered that the Canarian Executive and the central government agreed to modify the Immigration Law so that the reception of minors involves all communities, but when this proposal reached the Congress of Deputies, it was rejected by the PP, which governs in the islands. with the Canarian Coalition. Despite this, the reproaches of the Canarian Coalition have since that day been directed at the central government and not at its political partner. This is what the Minister of Territorial Policy and former President of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, reminded him of after learning of Clavijo’s threat.
“In the case of the Canary Islands, they are abandoning their functions. I don’t know if the Spanish government is clear or not. I am clear that the Spanish government is abandoning the Canary Islands and that is something that must be transmitted,” Clavijo said in an interview with Canarias Radio, the regional public radio station.
The leader of the Canarian Coalition denounced that some “confuse loyalty, understanding and prioritizing the interests of the minor with weakness, and they are wrong.”
That is why he believes that the time has come to take legal measures – a measure that he had already announced before the summer that he was willing to take – and he hopes that the decisions they adopt in this regard will have the support of the Canary Islands Pact for Migration, a forum that meets this afternoon and in which all the parliamentary forces of the islands participate, with the exception of Vox. This Canary Islands Pact, in which the PP is included, already supported the proposal to modify the immigration law, but that did not prevent this party from voting against it in Congress.
The president of the Canary Islands spoke of the thousands of people who have arrived in the islands in recent weeks, fulfilling something they had warned against and that “was not difficult to see”: arrivals expected in the second half of the year were going to intensify, as has happened in recent years.
And that means, he stressed, that the Canary Islands will have to face “one emergency after another emergency” by the end of the year, with all their centres for minors already “oversaturated” and several of them “at more than 200%” capacity.
In addition, he denounced that this weekend, with the constant arrivals of canoes in El Hierro, situations have occurred that he rejects.
“This weekend there was a before and after, with pressure and threats from the State on NGOs to take in minors without being able to guarantee them adequate care. Today, in the Government Council, we are going to debate this issue and make decisions. Obviously, if there is no loyalty and commitment, the government of the Canary Islands will put itself in its place,” he stressed.
Clavijo believes that “what cannot happen is that the emergency becomes normal” and recalls that in the last quarter of 2023, 7,398 minors arrived on the islands on boats and canoes, “which completely exceeded the reception resources”, indicated the government of the Canary Islands acted as it should: to take care of the minors first and foremost.”
“Because of this situation, it is all the work that we have done during months of negotiations to make happen what happened on July 23 (when Congress did not agree to proceed with the reform of the immigration law because PP, Vox and Junts were opposed to it),” he says.
Fernando Clavijo also confirmed that he would travel to Ceuta on Wednesday to try to unify his positions with the government of the other Spanish territory that is under the greatest pressure in welcoming migrant minors.
The government responds
The Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, responded to the President of the Canary Islands that the one who voted against the reform of the immigration law in Congress was his partner in the regional government, the PP.
This is what the former Canarian president also indicated in an interview with RNE, in which he criticized Clavijo for having “tried to protect his partner” by attacking the government, instead of speaking out “in defense of the interests of the Canary Islands” as requested by the popular party that supports the reform of the immigration law in the Lower House.
“I remind President Clavijo that the one who voted against on July 23 was the Popular Party, therefore his partner in the Canary Islands. “I think he is trying to protect his partner by attacking the government, when he should be defending the interests of the Canary Islands,” said Torres, before regretting the decision of the president of the Canary Islands, with whom he communicates “constantly, almost daily.” due to the arrival of migrants in the islands.
Torres admitted that the situation in the Canary Islands is “desperate” and requires a solution, although he denied that the central government had “turned its back” on the autonomous community. “How did you leave the State alone? If anyone left the Canary Islands alone, it was the Popular Party on July 23,” he concluded.
When asked if he was willing to reach an agreement with those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo to support the reform of the immigration law, Torres assured that they would continue to “reach out to them” and that during the month of August they continued to maintain contacts. The government’s position, according to him, is “a regulatory change” to be a solution, which “is not compatible” when “there are PP leaders” who “separate the good migrants from the bad ones.”
In the same vein, the socialist leader accused the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, of assuming the thesis of the “ultra-right” against immigration. “There is a situation where the extreme right has reached the institutions and some want to copy their messages,” he added.
Thus, Torres argued that, although it was thought that this message of “alarm in the face of the sea” was already outdated and that it was an “exclusive message of the extreme right”, it is assumed by the leaders of the Popular Party.
Torres attacked the “ultra-right” that spreads “hoaxes” that he believes seek to incite citizens to act against immigrants with “absolutely unfair messages.” “I fear that lies will take over reality,” he said.
“There is a clearly partisan use of immigration and some want to take advantage of it by launching hoaxes and making citizens try, with their messages, to act against them,” warned the minister, assuring that there is a good example of this. This is the case of the child murdered in Mocejón, Toledo, last August.
In this sense, he expressed his “fear” that “the hoax will become something credible” and become part of society’s thinking. For this reason, he appealed directly to the media, political leaders and their groups so that citizens are not “deceived.” “Let’s not manipulate things, let’s not fuel feelings against others for electoral purposes,” he added.
Thus, he explained that, in his opinion, unaccompanied minors who arrive on the shores of the Canary Islands are not “potential criminals” since crime is “something that happens in sick minds” and is not the cause of the trauma they have suffered. could suffer until reaching Spain.
