The president of the Popular Party of the Canary Islands, Manuel Domínguez, stated this Monday that "the policy on irregular immigration should have the Canary Islands as the central axis of its actions", he makes clear. "We are the southern border of Europe, as well as a place of arrival and transit for thousands and thousands of people," he indicated.
To all this, he adds that the migratory route to the Islands "is the deadliest on the planet", and "we do not have the human or material means to face the situation". He affirms that "I believe there are enough arguments not to ignore this issue, which, apparently, is the strategy of the Sánchez Government with the complacency of Torres and his current partners".
This is how the leader of the populars in the Archipelago expressed himself during a visit to the island of Lanzarote, in which he was accompanied by the island president of the PP, Astrid Pérez; and the candidate for the Presidency of the Cabildo, Jacobo Medina.
Domínguez has argued that "the immigration that arrives irregularly to our coasts is a matter that worries a lot", and has affirmed that "because it is not only about the management in the attention to those thousands of people who arrive each year to the Islands, but also about the humanitarian drama that plagues what is considered "the most dangerous migratory route in the world".
"The NGOs speak of more than six thousand deaths," recalled the PP candidate, pointing out that "this situation cannot be ignored, that image of the Canary Islands as a prison or cemetery, hiding the reality, letting a minister of Sánchez say that in this land there is no problem with immigration", he affirms.
Domínguez did not want to miss the opportunity to remember what happened recently with the Temporary Care Center for Foreigners of Arrecife (CATE); and he described as "stubbornness" and "senseless" the "attacks" carried out by the Central and Autonomous governments against Astrid Pérez, for warning that its location was a risk for those who stayed there. "
"The floods of the center during the rainy season and the subhuman conditions in which the migrants have been attended are examples that the mayor was not wrong at any time", he asserted.
On the other hand, the candidate has lamented that the Government of the Canary Islands is "proud" that the number of arrivals "have decreased during the past year, or that during the first quarter of 2023, and in comparison with the same period of the previous year, they have also decreased", he recognizes.
"They are happy, they say, that this famous and obscure agreement with Morocco is working". "Only one fact, in the first three months of the year the same number of irregular immigrants have arrived to our coasts by sea as in all of 2019", he recalls.
"Many of them to the coasts of Lanzarote, an island that has been systematically abandoned by the Sánchez Government, which even with deaths on the beach a few meters from his summer residence did not deign to take an interest in what was happening on these coasts while enjoying his vacations", he continues.
In addition, the candidate has stated that in the face of irregular immigration his party defends "a policy based on the pillars of prevention at the source, collaboration with the main countries that send migrants and improvements in border management with those States".
For the Popular Party, the Canary Islands must "agree on a common strategy under the umbrella of a great Canary Pact for Immigration and establish a clear position in favor of orderly, regulated migration with equal rights and obligations"; "far from the temptation to look for one-day headlines and generate false expectations and hopelessness for the migrants themselves", he stated.
Also, "increase human and material resources to face the arrival of immigrants to the Islands; immediate start-up of the surveillance services that are inoperative, such as the SIVE of Lanzarote, which serves to save lives; urge the Government of Spain to comply with the law in force; sign new bilateral agreements with nations that send people and effectively execute the terms of the agreements already signed; together with requesting the Government of Spain to reduce the number of permanent reception places for immigrants in the Archipelago", which are some of the measures proposed by the Popular Party of the Canary Islands in the field of irregular immigration.
