This Tuesday, the Council of Ministers took the first step to transmit to the Constitutional Court the new protocol for the reception of minors of the Government of the Canary Islands. The Executive has agreed to ask the Council of State for an “urgent” opinion on the plan approved by the Canary Islands “in the face of a possible conflict of powers”, as announced by the government spokesperson, Pilar AlegrÃa. The operation approved last week in the Canary Islands adds to the usual reception procedure a series of procedures that, in practice, would delay the attention of the children by the Regional Executive, responsible for migrant children and adolescents in a situation of helplessness.
The Government of the Canary Islands, made up of the Canarian Coalition and the Popular Party, announced this protocol last Thursday, which introduces a series of prerequisites for the entry of migrant minors into the regional reception system. Among these requirements are, for example, the individualized identification of minors, their registration in the Registry of Unaccompanied Foreign Minors and the issuance of an administrative resolution by the State, all this before the children can access the protection centers of the autonomous community.
The approval of the new protocol has further widened the gap between the central government and the Canarian Executive in terms of finding solutions to the situation of migrant minors in the Canaries, due to the saturation of reception resources linked to the increase in the number of migrants. arrivals from cayucos in the archipelago. The increase in tension comes after the blocking of the process of reform of the immigration law that would allow the promotion of a mandatory system of transfer of minors to the peninsula with the aim of relieving the reception centers of the territories that, like the Archipelago , are in an emergency situation. The Popular Party, Junts and Vox have annulled the measure, but the Canarian president, Fernando Clavijo, has placed the central government at the center of his criticism, which he accused of not having negotiated enough to obtain the parliamentary support necessary to advance. the regulations.
After the meeting in which the Council of Ministers agreed to take the first step to bring the Canarian reception protocol before the Constitutional Court, Clavijo participated in the Interministerial Commission on Immigration with the aim of trying to bring positions closer together on the management of migrant minors. The meeting takes place a day after the Canarian leader raised the tone of his criticism of the central executive. According to him, the government “attacks” and “threatens” the islands instead of helping them.
After the approval of the Canary Islands protocol, the Canary Islands High Prosecutor’s Office had already warned the Government of the Canary Islands last Friday that it would not allow migrant minors arriving in the Islands to not be received in the care centres. The Public Prosecutor’s Office questioned the assumption on which the decree is based, which seeks to make the State responsible at its own expense for migrant minors, for which the Canary Islands affirm that these children and adolescents, even if they are alone, are not in a situation of helplessness, since they are guarded by agents of the National Police upon their arrival on the coast.
“Unaccompanied foreign minors are always helpless. There is no situation of a minor in distress clearer than that of unaccompanied foreign minors,” concluded the chief prosecutor of the Canary Islands, MarÃa Farnés MartÃnez, in a document advanced by El PaÃs.
The Ministry of Youth and Children has also sent a report to the Juvenile Prosecutor’s Office in which it warns of the possible impact of the protocol approved by the Government of the Canary Islands for the reception of unaccompanied migrant minors. The Ministry has stressed that the measures imposed by the Canarian Executive could constitute a serious violation of the fundamental rights of children who arrive on the coasts of the autonomous community and be contrary to both Spanish legislation and international child protection agreements.
According to the Canary Islands government, the aim of the plan is to avoid the disorder that has dominated the process so far and to guarantee the “necessary organisation” of the children for their “immediate attention”.
