The mayor of Arrecife, Yonathan de León (PP), told the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and Provinces (FEMP) this Thursday about his concern regarding the migratory situation in Lanzarote, buying into the discourse of the extreme right and assuring that "Lanzarote is experiencing a collapse due to the permanent avalanche of migrants arriving in boats."
The mayor of the capital met this Thursday with the general secretary of the FEMP, Luis Martínez-Sicluna, where he showed him "the tension that the city and all of Lanzarote are experiencing due to the overcrowding suffered by the Puerto de Naos area, where more tents are being deployed in the face of this dantesque arrival."
According to data from Maritime Rescue, which has its base in Lanzarote in the fishing port of Naos, in the city of Arrecife, around 500 migrants have arrived on the island of Lanzarote in these first days of February.
For the mayor of the capital of Lanzarote, "who already warned last autumn about his fear that the island would become the Lampedusa of the Atlantic, the National Government does not provide either the means or the personnel to deal with this agonizing avalanche of boats, with people risking their lives to reach these islands, which are the southernmost natural border in Europe."
During this meeting, held this Thursday in Gran Canaria, the island councilor of the Cabildo de Lanzarote, Jacobo Medina, was also present as vice president of the Immigration Commission in the FEMP.
Yonathan de León has conveyed to the general secretary of the FEMP his fear, given "the alarming arrival figures," that Puerto Naos, the port area of Arrecife, "will become the permanent heart of disembarkation for the arrival of boats on the coasts of the Canary Islands." The mayor recalls that the Temporary Foreigner Attention Center, which the Ministry of the Interior built next to the Arrecife Police Station, "was built in an area prone to flooding, contravening the urban planning regulations of the city, and where the Government of Pedro Sánchez authorized it with an extraordinary agreement from the Council of Ministers."
The capital's mayor has supported the proposal of the general secretary of the FEMP, announced this Thursday in the Canary Islands, which calls for "a regulatory framework that recognizes the role played by city councils in the face of immigration and that allows them to have the necessary resources and powers to carry out policies from the perspectives of the municipalities."
To conclude, De León indicated that on many of the days, "the National Police can only dedicate themselves to caring for the migrants arriving in boats, and it should only be the Local Police that covers the needs in terms of citizen security." The mayor has advised the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and the president, Pedro Sánchez, "to visit the Puerto de Naos area and see with their own eyes the overcrowding that the Central Government is favoring." Thus, he has recalled that "both PSOE leaders only know the tourist image of Lanzarote when they have come on vacation. But on this island there is another Dantesque reality that immigration arriving in boats is leaving behind."
