The Governing Council has approved a request addressed to the Council of Ministers to comply with its obligations, included in its state framework protocol, in the face of the migratory crisis that the Canary Islands is experiencing. In the agreement adopted, the Government details the current situation, the accumulation of legal breaches by the State in this crisis and states that, after a period of one month, the Executive, “through its legal services, will exercise the legal and judicial actions it deems appropriate” with the aim of the State assuming its powers in relation to unaccompanied foreign minors, who are its responsibility and whom it is obliged to take care of.
The agreement argues that action on migration affects at least four ministries, which are the ones that signed the framework protocol on certain actions in relation to unaccompanied foreign minors, and that these have to exercise powers over maritime rescue, migration, borders and foreign relations. In addition, it insists on non-compliance in economic matters derived from its obligation to guarantee the principle of solidarity.
Among the reasons, it raises the aggravation of the migratory crisis added to the lack of resources to care for the people who continue to arrive, “the impossibility of enabling new assistance devices (except those enabled by emergency in the ports), due to the material lack of adequate facilities, except those requested and not transferred by the General State Administration”.
The text recalls that, from the first moments of the migratory crisis, the Government of the Canary Islands “has complied with and managed all its obligations in a responsible and cohesive manner, and will continue to do so. In this way, it has always been and will continue to prioritize the objective of protecting the best interests of unaccompanied foreign girls and boys, the best development of their personality and their full social integration. Without prejudice to many other previous actions, the political and social commitment is unquestionable”.
Regarding the specific situation of unaccompanied minor migrants who continue to arrive, the agreement states that “the reality is that, since their arrival, they are being cared for”. According to the current protocol, “after being collected at sea by the competent authorities, once disembarked, the state authorities take care of their custody and custody, in addition to carrying out their identification, providing them with care and attention in the resources available and specifically enabled to deal with the emergency in ports and other facilities. Attention by the host resources of the Autonomous Administration takes place, as has been done, from the moment of delivery of the groups of minors by officials of the National Police with a delivery certificate containing a list of names, in some cases with data crossed out or incomplete and in breach of the state framework protocol approved in this regard in 2014. Even so, the Autonomous Community takes care of the minors, assigning them to one of the resources that are available”.
The Executive insists on the fact that, “while the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands continues to care for all unaccompanied minors with overwhelmed and insufficient means for the magnitude of a continental migration, the Government of Spain and the General State Administration turn the aggravated migratory crisis into a political and media debate, without formulating the slightest proposal aimed at resolving the situation”.
The agreement emphasizes that the reception and protection system for unaccompanied migrant minors has increased its size from 29 to 81 reception centers in the last year, and has received many more unaccompanied minors than the planned places already expanded, “to the detriment of the well-being and safety of minors”.
The document signed by the Governing Council insists on the absence of repatriation actions for unaccompanied migrant minors and on the fact that in relation to the 6,000 unaccompanied migrant minors who are being hosted in the Canary Islands, “no action has been taken for their return to their country of origin to integrate with their family”.
It also states that the State infringes different regulations such as articles 2 bis 3 of Organic Law 4/2000, of January 11, on the rights and freedoms of foreigners in Spain and their social integration (LOEX) or article 172 of the Civil Code. This is because the State equates the place where the minor is in a situation of helplessness with the territory of the port of arrival, even though the helplessness was prior, as well as due to the absence of a situation of helplessness by providing the State with the immediate attention required to unaccompanied migrant minors that it saves at sea or receives at the land border.
Finally, in the agreement adopted, the regional Executive reiterates the “full willingness of the Autonomous Community to seek and adopt by mutual agreement the most appropriate measures for the correct care of unaccompanied foreign minors, based on the best interests of the minor that should guide the correct care of all public authorities”.
It should be remembered that, at the Sectoral Conference on Childhood and Adolescence in March 2022, the Canary Islands, with the government of Ángel Víctor Torres, presented a legal report that questioned that the responsibility for unaccompanied foreign minors was the exclusive competence of the autonomous communities and, as specified in the minutes of the meeting, they are at least concurrent competences with the State in application of art. 35 of Law 4/2000, which indicates that “until the minors are documented, they are the responsibility of the State”.
The Government of the Canary Islands, given the impossibility of the Government of Spain taking action in this line, and to organize this situation, adopted its own territorial protocol derived from the state framework protocol, approved by resolution of October 13, 2014 of the Undersecretariat of the Presidency, and which was agreed between the ministries with powers in the migratory phenomenon. In this sense, section 1 point three of this document establishes that “the Framework Protocol, understood as a type or pattern of good practices that, regardless of its binding value for the State institutions that subscribe to it, should be completed with the drafting of the corresponding territorial protocols so that –according to their respective statutory rules– it can bind the respective autonomous administrations and institutions”.
