The United States has 11,700 unaccompanied foreign minors under its guardianship with some 300 million inhabitants. The Canary Islands, where the population of the archipelago reaches 2.2 million, currently has 4,521 migrant children and adolescents under its umbrella. This is the comparison that the President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, resorted to yesterday to denounce the pressure that the islands are suffering due to the recent crisis of the Senegalese cayucos, during which there were weeks in which an average of one hundred arrived unaccompanied minors per day.
This new call for help to the central government and the autonomous communities was made by the Canary Islands president to the Minister of Migration, Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, who took up the gauntlet by assuring that the Executive will get to work “imminently” to Carry out the necessary legislative modifications so that the reception of migrant minors by the rest of the autonomous communities is not optional.
The idea is to transfer to Spanish legislation the mechanism approved for the entire European Union by which each country is obliged to welcome a certain number of people. To do this, it will be necessary to reform the Minors' Law, as the minister guaranteed yesterday.
Spain has a double reception system for migrants. The guardianship of adults and minors who are accompanied with their families is part of a comprehensive system that depends on Migrations. If during a migratory crisis – be it the one that the Canary Islands recently suffered, several consecutive massive jumps to the fences of Ceuta or Melilla or a resurgence of boats on the Andalusian coasts – the community to which the migrants arrive does not have enough reception places , people are referred to other communities that have available resources or temporary camps are set up. However, the guardianship of foreign minors depends exclusively on the autonomous communities in which the minor is located. And when the autonomous system for minors collapses, the only possibility is to depend on the solidarity of the rest of the communities to proceed with the transfers.
According to the registry of minors, coordinated by the State Attorney General's Office, the second autonomy that has the largest number of these children and adolescents is Andalusia (1,707), followed by Catalonia (1,337) and the Valencian Community (1,016). The following communities that have the most foreign minors under guardianship are Madrid (849), the Basque Country (667), the Balearic Islands (319), Castilla y León (295), Melilla (276), Murcia (240), Ceuta (221) and Galicia (209). On the contrary, the autonomies with the least welcome are La Rioja (10), Cantabria (34), Extremadura (53), Asturias (64), Aragón (125), Navarra (133) and Castilla-La Mancha (143). With these data, the Canary Islands have almost 40% of the national total in their child protection services.
The intention is, as the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, already announced during a recent visit to Gran Canaria, that “solidarity is mandatory.” Saiz promised yesterday to “undoubtedly work to find consensus” so that the legislative modification goes ahead. Something that, in his assessment, requires “active listening and hand in hand” with the different autonomous communities and all the actors involved.” The intention is that the change in the law will be piloted by the Ministry of Youth and Children. Hence, the Sectoral Conference on migration held last week was a cold shower for the Canary Islands, since no progress was made.
What was agreed upon, as the Minister of Migration recalled yesterday, is the constitution of several technical teams in which all the ministries in charge of immigration will be present to advance the legislative change, which will take place in Congress and the Senate.
Clavijo reported yesterday that the cost of managing the crisis in the Canary Islands amounts to around 104 million euros, and that, regardless of the 50 already transferred by the Government, both administrations have committed to seeking more resources. “We need to do the forecast for 2024, at least until the distribution and distribution of minors is resolved, because the Canary Islands are going to have to continue financially supporting these expenses.”
