The president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, stated this Monday after the meeting with his state counterpart, Pedro Sánchez, that the autonomous Executive has contact with several NGOs in the Peninsula that could host hundreds of minor migrant asylum seekers and speed up the transfers that began last week.
"We have identified NGOs in the Peninsula to be able to take on hundreds of minors," he said at a press conference after the meeting, in which he stated that, if the Government of the Canary Islands is able to know which organizations have available places, the Government of Spain "will be able to do it with much more capacity than us."
According to Clavijo, the pace that has been proposed for these transfers, which began on the 11th, "is being too slow," and he has warned that so far this year more minor asylum seekers have entered the Canary Islands than have left the archipelago.
For this reason, he considered that the situation "has to change drastically," because at the current rate it would take a year to transfer the current minor asylum seekers in the islands, and "when the year ends, more will have arrived than have left, so we will continue with the same problem or worse."
The president of the Canary Islands has reiterated that on the part of the central Executive, which is the one that must take care of the minors and manage the referrals, "there is no plan, the improvisation continues the same," and he has conveyed to the Spanish president that the island Government is in contact with NGOs that have places available for these minors, requesting him to intervene.
Sánchez informed Clavijo during the meeting that the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, told him that she is having difficulties with certain autonomous communities in finding places.
"In fact, three or four days ago the minister herself called me because a technical meeting of an urgent nature was held to be able to take out five more children. And what I conveyed to her is that I can understand that there is difficulty, but that the Supreme Court is setting the times," added the regional president.
Two more transfers this week
The Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, also stated at a press conference after the meeting that the referrals of migrant minors with international protection from the Canary Islands to other autonomous communities will continue and there will be two more this week.
Torres recalled that these transfers must be done with pre-established requirements and a protocol that must be followed, so sometimes they cannot be accelerated as the Government of the Canary Islands wishes.
"There is an established protocol. We are talking about minors who have a series of rights, they must be heard, they must be accompanied by a lawyer, a legal representative; they have to give their acceptance and for every five minors there has to be a person with them," he said.
They must also go "to a specific center and they have the right to schooling, it is not easy. We would also like the pace to be faster," he added, also asking to avoid the xenophobic demonstrations that have been seen.
The minister announced that a new joint meeting will be held this Wednesday with the Government of the Canary Islands to monitor the situation.
Torres has accused the administrations in which the PP governs of "putting a spoke in the wheels" for the distribution of immigrant minors and has asked the Popular Party for "a reflection and to change its strategy in its way of acting," since they are children and adolescents in a vulnerable situation.
In addition, he announced that at the end of the month all the autonomous communities will be convened to a sectoral conference on immigration, which he hopes the representatives of the PP will attend.
Torres also mentioned that, so far this year, the Atlantic Route has decreased by about 50% and highlighted the contacts that the Government has had with the countries of origin and transit of migrants, such as the visit of the Spanish president to Mauritania last July.