Unanimous agreement between the central government and the autonomous communities to distribute 396 unaccompanied migrant minors who are currently in the Canary Islands and Ceuta in solidarity among the territories. The majority, 360, will leave the archipelago, and the rest, 36, from the autonomous city. All the regions signed the distribution yesterday, despite the initial reluctance of the conservative regional governments in order to alleviate the saturation in the Canary Islands, which already cares for 3,321 minors – not counting the last shepherds who arrived on the coasts.
The Ministry of Social Rights was the arbiter of the meeting at the Sectorial Conference on Childhood and Adolescence. There was an almost sealed deal on the table, but the department headed by Ione Belarra did not dare to take anything for granted. The negotiations for the distribution – which is part of a two-year response plan to the migration crisis – became complicated after several communities changed their political orientation in the summer following the elections in May. Vox, which has launched tough campaigns against migrant minors by associating them with criminality, is part of regional executives who have voluntarily agreed to host foreign children and teenagers.
The autonomous communities that will host the most minors in the centers are Andalusia (36), Madrid (34), Catalonia (33) and Asturias (32). La Rioja, which is the community with the fewest places for foreign minors in the system, will take care of four children and teenagers. and the Balearic Islands, which also suffers from strong migratory pressure from the Algerian coast, will assume the guardianship of ten more minors.
In the regions where the Popular Party governs with Vox, the former have imposed their criteria on the extreme right, since from their ranks they insist on the fact that “where foreign minors should be is back in their countries with their parents”, say training sources. Therefore, Castile and León will assume the guardianship of 23 minors; the Valencian Community, 25; Extremadura, 25; Aragon, 24, and Murcia, 19. From the ultra party they explain that their position “has not changed and will not change”, but that they have acted “responsibly” because this agreement “is not a reason to break a government pact”.
For its part, the Ministry of Social Rights agreed to distribute 20 million euros to the autonomous communities, depending on the number of minors in care. Catalonia will receive 1,811,463 million euros for the 33 minors it has committed to host. In addition, the communities agreed to ask the European Union to increase the funds allocated for attention to this matter, which in Spain are currently 20 million euros.
The request for more funds is led by the Canary Islands, aware that if funding is increased it will be easier to transfer minors to the Peninsula in a model that becomes integral, as is the case for adults. Currently, adults or accompanied minors are part of a system – set up by the Ministry of Inclusion – in which migrants are distributed throughout the national territory based on vulnerability and available places, unlike the unaccompanied minors, which depends on each autonomous community.
This difference, precisely, is causing one of the biggest obstacles in the Canary Islands to respond to the wave of Senegalese shepherds: the management of minors who arrive there. There is the paradox that, as the authorities report, there are more minor migrants than adults. The central government, which does not want a repeat of the images of the Arguineguín pier (Gran Canaria), where more than 2,500 people crowded in November 2020, is diverting the migrants who arrive in El Hierro to other islands or the Peninsula. Something that is not being done with such agility with minors due to the lack of resources.
Two figures, according to police sources, serve to summarize the challenge facing the Canary Islands in the coming weeks: on Tuesday there were 9 adult migrants in the Hierro, compared to 291 minors.
