The Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration is working to start the first referrals of unaccompanied migrant minors seeking asylum from the Canary Islands to the Peninsula within a maximum period of two weeks.
This was stated this Tuesday by sources from the Ministry after the meeting held every week between the central government and the Canary Islands to articulate the way in which the State complies with two Supreme Court orders that oblige the central government to take charge of the young petitioners for international protection who until now were cared for by the Canary Islands.
In Tuesday's working session, Migrations informed the Government of the islands that it has held meetings with the main entities that work with minors in order to analyze the resources and immediate locations in the Peninsula, where it has created 1,200 places to welcome these children and adolescents.
In parallel, Engloba, the collaborating entity in the Canary Islands, is carrying out individualized assessments of the minors who have expressed their willingness to move to the Peninsula, a procedure that "is key to carrying out this procedure with full guarantees," the sources stressed.
The Government presented the Canary Islands last week with a calendar for the transfer of minors to the Canary Islands 50 reception and referral center, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, on a temporary basis until they could be referred to the Peninsula.
Thus, during the past week the first two transfers were completed, with a total of 80 minors, and this Wednesday a new referral will take place, once the necessary checks have been carried out on the list sent at the last minute on Tuesday morning by the Government of the Canary Islands.
The Secretary of State for Migration, Pilar Cancela, explained, in a video message sent, that it is necessary to take time to analyze the specific circumstances and life experience of each young person in order to "get it right" with each referral.
She also stressed the importance of these transfers "contemplating a small core of them", with no more than 30 or 40 children each time, because it is important to "preserve that they feel comfortable, that they feel good".
The sources recalled that the Council of Ministers approved last week an item of 40 million to comply with the Supreme Court order and create 1,200 places in the Peninsula.
Migrations has already put on the table 750 places, which are currently being specified with the collaborating entities, so that they are available "immediately".
The Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, also referred to the situation of asylum-seeking minors this Tuesday, after chairing the Interministerial Immigration Commission, held today in Moncloa with all the ministers with competence in this area.
Torres has assured that the Government is complying with the Supreme Court order, since nearly 1,000 minors are registered in the international protection reception system -although only about 80 have actually been transferred to state resources- and the first young people have already begun to enter the Canary Islands 50 for their subsequent referral to the peninsula.
The inter-ministerial meeting also analyzed the implementation of the royal decree law for the relocation of unaccompanied migrant minors from areas with strained resources such as the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, to other territories.
In this sense, the Government has ratified this Tuesday that on August 26 the Council of Ministers will approve a third royal decree to develop this mechanism, in this case related to the ordinary reception capacity of each territory according to its population, and the migratory contingency will be declared for the Canary Islands, two "very important" steps to deploy this new model.