Canary Islands speaks of a "before and after" due to "pressure" from the State with migrant minors

The Government of the Canary Islands perceives "a before and after" when managing the care of migrant children arriving by sea after denouncing "pressure" from the Government of Spain to take over the guardianship of the children despite the situation of "absolute" saturation in El Hierro.

In the press conference after the Governing Council, the spokesperson for the regional Executive, Alfonso Cabello, explained that, during this afternoon's meeting of the migration pact at the headquarters of the Presidency of the Government in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, they will discuss what legal actions will be taken in this situation.

According to Cabello's account, the NGOs received "pressure" from the Police and the Prosecutor's Office for Minors to take charge of the children and adolescents who arrived in El Hierro in recent days, although, as the spokesperson recalled, this island has 150 places and already hosts 285 minors.

"There has been a deep debate in the Governing Council on a series of legal measures to be adopted over the next few days and whose details will be known after meeting with the political groups," Cabello insisted, who assured that this meeting will result in "a roadmap for the coming weeks."

Asked about what type of pressure had been received, Cabello said that the National Police and the Prosecutor's Office required the NGOs to place the minors in already saturated infrastructures, knowing the real situation of the centers, which "cannot take any more."

"When you have a network to accommodate 150 and you have 285, we are talking about a very tense and complex situation. When, on top of that situation, there continue to be arrivals of around 70 minors, referrals have to be made to a network that cannot suffer more pressure," Cabello elaborated.

The spokesperson has accused the Government of Spain and the European Union of "neglecting their duties" with the Canary Islands, which in his opinion has been "more egregious than ever in recent days," and said that when the European institutions focused on the Mediterranean route and Lampedusa (Italy), arrivals decreased by 65%.

"When decisions are made by the EU, a situation can be reversed," Cabello insisted, who complained that in four years the rest of the autonomous communities have taken in fewer minors, around 500, than those who have arrived in the Canary Islands in the month of August alone (571).

Faced with these numbers, the autonomous community, he insisted, has a capacity of 4,339 minors to accommodate, although there are currently 5,283, with "944 minors oversaturating the reception network in the 80 centers in the Canary Islands."

Alfonso Cabello also spoke of a 120% increase in the number of migrants who have reached the Canary Islands coasts compared to the same period last year, and he highlighted that the Canarian president, Fernando Clavijo, will travel to Ceuta to develop a joint roadmap with the autonomous city, which is also managing a migratory rebound.

For the Government of the Canary Islands, it is up to the Government of Spain to respond to this situation, especially after having "warned" that the flow would increase on these dates, as has been historically demonstrated.

"It is up to the PSOE at the national level to make a move and take government action," Cabello stressed, concluding that the Canarian Government, "at some point," "has to stand up" to a situation that, he said, "has burned" the Government of Spain.

The vice president of the Canarian Government, Manuel Domínguez (PP), has denied that his party is "uncooperative" despite not having supported the processing of the reform of the Immigration Law agreed between his partner, Coalición Canaria, and the PSOE in the Congress of Deputies.

"The PP had a series of proposals, which were reduced, and adapted to the main needs of the Canary Islands. With 50 million we could not cover the cost of the tutored minors, for example. The PP's requests are neither a whim nor impossible to fulfill," Domínguez responded.