The Government of the Canary Islands maintains its struggle with the State over the reception of migrant children. After the failure of the reform of the immigration law, which sought to establish a mandatory distribution of minors arriving on the islands among all the communities, the regional executive has implemented new measures to highlight the collapse of the archipelago’s resources. The first, installing tents in the ports of arrival to house minors until they find a place in the system. The second, a controversial protocol suspended by Justice and which required survivors to complete a series of police procedures before entering the protection network. Apart from political negotiations, 5,600 young people live together on the islands without all their rights being guaranteed. “We have a thousand Malians who have not been heard and the protection protocol has not been activated,” acknowledged the president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo (CC), after meeting Tuesday in Madrid with the ministers responsible for migration.
The protocol imposed by the regional government would further slow down the protection of minors who arrive on the islands without family and in a situation of “helplessness”, according to the conclusions of the Superior Prosecutor’s Office of the Canary Islands, described as “ridiculous” by the leader of the Canarian Coalition. The Council of Ministers has also already taken the first steps to appeal this project before the Constitutional Court, due to a possible “conflict of powers”, since minors who arrive by boat are the responsibility of the autonomous community and not of the General Administration of the State.
Relations between the central government and the regional governments are stagnating, in exchanges of fire. “Far from receiving help, complicity or collaboration, it seems that because we are asking for the minor to be handed over with legal guarantees, the Spanish government is dedicated to attacking the Canary Islands,” Clavijo said.
At present, the reform of the immigration law continues to be considered the only answer to the collapse of the islands’ resources. After the meeting of political leaders in Madrid, the negotiations returned to the point they were in July, when the autonomies governed by the PP refused to commit to compulsory reception. After his meeting with the Canarian president, the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, announced that Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party had agreed to meet to unblock this solution.
The news was welcomed by Clavijo, who, in statements to the media, suggested that his government’s measures could have been an instrument of pressure on the State: “If all this agitation has served to be able to sit at a table, we welcome it. “We are delighted to have been able to facilitate this meeting that I have been asking for for weeks.”
Among the “unrest”, the overpopulation of young people supervised by the government of the Canary Islands in the centers has been established for months. “The resources must be around 20 [niños]and in some we have more than 300,” acknowledged the President of the Government of the Canary Islands. The emergency facility of Hoya Fría, in Tenerife, is one of these examples, where hundreds of young people live together in this establishment formerly used for pigeon breeding.
Despite complaints of mistreatment and the poor condition of the facility, it continues to operate. Asked about the measures his government had adopted to resolve the reception problems, Clavijo responded at a press conference that he had “collected testimonies” and handed them over to the prosecutor’s office for study. “I know that there are at least four or five procedures open at the prosecutor’s office,” he noted.
Against the criteria of the prosecution
The Clavijo government has ignored the indications of the prosecutor’s office, which opposed both the reception of minors in tents and the protocol suspended by the High Court of Justice of the Canary Islands (TSJC). The executive has already set up a camp on the dock of Arrecife, in Lanzarote, and another in the port of La Estaca, in El Hierro. The young people are expected to spend days there until they are transferred to reception centres. The immigration prosecutor of Las Palmas, Teseida García, said that she would not allow unaccompanied minors to stay in tents as if they were “homes” for children. After the announcement by the Ministry of Social Protection, García appealed to common sense. “The Arguineguín pier was what it was and this cannot happen again,” he said.
The autonomous community also does not have the approval of Justice to apply its protocol for the care of minors. “Unaccompanied migrant minors who have been rescued by the State at sea or who have been intercepted upon arrival on the coast by the Civil Guard or the National Police would find themselves without immediate attention and in a situation of obvious helplessness,” warned the government of Clavijo, the Attorney General of the Canary Islands.
Among the requirements included in the protocol is the assessment of the situation of risk or helplessness in which children and adolescents arrive in the Archipelago. On this point, the prosecution is categorical: “Unaccompanied foreign minors are always helpless. There is no situation of a minor in distress clearer than that of unaccompanied foreign minors.
