The communities agree to host 400 minors, but do not reach an agreement to change the law

The autonomous communities have agreed this Wednesday at the Sectoral Conference on Childhood to voluntarily host 400 migrant minors under guardianship in the Canary Islands and Ceuta, but there has been no consensus on the Government's proposal, demanded by the Canary Islands, to make these distributions mandatory through a modification of the Immigration Law.

The Government has complained that the PP "does not express itself" on this legal change, which it wants to accelerate anyway to register it in Congress this month.

However, Vox understands that the acceptance by the communities that it governs with the PP of the voluntary distribution of 400 minors already means that the autonomous agreements between both parties are broken.

The agreement for a voluntary distribution of 400 minors is similar to the one that occurred in October 2023, but bureaucratic difficulties have prevented more than 80% of them from leaving the Canary Islands, recalled the Minister of Youth and Childhood, Sira Rego.

That is why a binding legal reform is necessary to not leave "any boy or girl behind or any community behind," she argued.

According to the distribution agreed this Wednesday, the community that would host the most minors would be Catalonia, with 31 young people; Andalusia, Extremadura and Madrid, with 30 minors each; Cantabria, with 29, and Galicia, with 26.

The ones that correspond the least in this distribution are La Rioja, with 4 minors; Balearic Islands, with 10, and Navarra, with 15.

Despite this agreement for this voluntary distribution, there has been no consensus for the modification of the Immigration Law.

The PP communities have criticized that the document with the reform was delivered to them the day before the sectoral conference, while those of the PSOE have given their support to the text proposed by the Central Government and endorsed by that of the Canary Islands.

Thus, Andalusia, whose councilor Loles López has attended the meeting in person, has stated that her community will host 30 children in that voluntary reception but has criticized the Central Government for “abandoning” 454 minors that it has sent to Andalusia camouflaged as adults and whose minority is refusing to recognize.

She has demanded financing for these children who, in her opinion, the Executive of Pedro Sánchez has transferred “through the back door” and has expressed that while Andalusia is once again showing its solidarity, the Government of Spain has once again displayed its irresponsibility and its lack of humanity.”

The Madrid councilor for Family, Youth and Social Affairs, Ana Dávila, has lashed out at the Government of Pedro Sánchez for putting "patches" on the migratory problem with an "imposed" distribution of minors to the autonomies that "does not solve anything", and has warned that the reform of the Immigration Law that it proposes could be unconstitutional.

On the other hand, the Government of the Principality of Asturias has expressed its support for the reform of the immigration law to distribute the reception of unaccompanied minors who arrive on the Canary coasts, a measure that, according to the Minister of Social Rights, Marta del Arco, "is accompanied by financing, as it could not be otherwise."

For La Rioja, the Minister of Health and Social Policies of La Rioja, María Martín, has asked the State to assume its powers and adopt a “serious policy to correct a structural humanitarian crisis that until now is only being faced with the effort of the communities.”

The Government of Murcia has said after the Sectoral Conference on Childhood and Adolescence this Wednesday for the distribution among regions of unaccompanied migrant minors arriving in the Canary Islands that theirs is "collapsed, over-occupied at 200% due to the continuous arrival of boats to its coasts and without capacity to host more."

The Minister of Family and Equal Opportunities of Castilla y León, Isabel Blanco, has asked the central government for border control and to involve the European Union in the migration policy, because, in her opinion, there is a problem not only with minors, but with adults, and is "failing to fulfill its functions."

The Minister of Health and Social Services of Extremadura, Sara García Espada, declared this Wednesday the "frontal opposition" of her autonomous community to a distribution of minors being made "singularized, not agreed upon and imposed as proposed by some autonomous communities", and has said that they will host the 30 children planned in the 2024 agreement.

On the contrary, the Minister of Social Welfare of the Government of the Canary Islands, Candelaria Delgado, has urged the Council of Ministers to approve "now" a decree law to be able to immediately refer minors from the islands to other communities, whose nuances can be discussed later in Congress.

The Government has confirmed its intention to accelerate the legislative change and has urged the PP to behave like a state party, but has not clarified whether the reform will be proposed as a decree law as demanded by the Government of the Canary Islands.