Back to July 2024. The government will reactivate negotiations to reach an agreement on the reform of the immigration law with which it intends to promote the mandatory distribution of migrant minors. After the meeting held this Tuesday between the ministers concerned and the President of the Canary Islands, the head of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, announced that he had contacted the Popular Party to hold a meeting “as soon as possible”, to which Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party accepted.
“I have already informed the Popular Party of the possibility of sitting as soon as possible on behalf of our Ministry, and they have informed us that yes, we will proceed to continue these negotiations. So I hope that we can move forward and reach a solution through the modification of article 35 of the Immigration Law,” said Ángel Víctor Torres, after the meeting held this morning with the President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo (Canarian Coalition). . and other members of the central government with competence in matters of migration and childhood. “It was agreed that the intention was to sit down as soon as possible with the Popular Group. They are able to sit down and must see the agendas,” said the leader of the Canary Islands.
During his stay in Madrid, Clavijo defended the need for the government and the PP to sit down again to promote a solution to the reception situation in the islands, which already host 5,300 migrant minors. The Canarian leader insisted to the corresponding ministers on the importance of a tripartite meeting – Central Government, Canarian Executive and PP – with the aim of clarifying the “two unknowns” that, according to him, still remain to be resolved regarding the demands of the communities governed by the popular people to agree to support the reform of the immigration law.
The first refers to the minimum number of places that each community must have in its reception system, that is, at what scale the 100% of reception places on which the distribution system will be based will be determined. The second specifies the details of the financing that the State will be responsible for: how many of these places will be taken care of by the central government and how many by the autonomies. Clarifying these two issues, says Clavijo, will be the objective of the next meeting between the parties, the date of which has not yet been set.
The decision to reactivate negotiations comes in the middle of a battle between the Central Executive and the Canary Islands, after the approval of the protocol for the reception of minors that the Council of Ministers intends to appeal to the Constitutional Court, for which this Tuesday it took the first step with the request for an opinion from the Council of State. In this sense, the Canarian leader continues to defend the contested protocol, accused of being discriminatory by the prosecutor’s office, although he added that the application of the new procedure would be stopped if there was an agreement between the PP and the central government to promote the reform of the immigration law. “If there is an agreement, the protocol would not be necessary because everything would be included in the law,” he added. However, until the agreement does not arrive, Clavijo remains firm in his decision to apply a decree despite multiple warnings from the prosecutor’s office, responsible for guaranteeing the rights of homeless minors.
According to the Canarian leader, it appears that the criticized protocol, which has provoked a legal battle with the central government and the intervention of the Public Ministry, could be an agreement in a political negotiation in which the rights of children are at stake. girls and adolescents: “We have managed to get the Spanish government and the PP to sit down. If this agitation has made them sit down, they are welcome,” said Clavijo, who described as “ridiculous” the argument of the prosecution regarding the discriminatory nature of the protocol approved by the Canary Islands, which adds to the usual procedure a series of prior procedures. This would cause a delay in the transfer to the reception center of minors who arrived on the islands by cayuco.
The President of the Canary Islands categorically rejects the report of the Higher Prosecutor’s Office of the Canary Islands, which warns of the consequences that the application of its protocol could have on the rights of migrant minors. He does not fear, he says, that its activation could generate a situation of abandonment among children. “This reaffirms us in the work we do. Only if we refused to receive a minor examined and identified would we incur abandonment,” insists Clavijo.
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 Alegría. 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 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, María Farnés Martínez, in a document advanced by El País.
