“In their eagerness to resemble Vox more and more each day, the Popular Party has once again displayed deplorable tactics and has opposed not only the content of the proposal to modify the Immigration Law, but also its mere admission for processing, a step that would have allowed the initiative to begin processing and negotiate the improvements that may be necessary to guarantee its majority support in Parliament.” This is how the spokesperson for the Socialist Group of the Cabildo of Lanzarote, Ariagona González, has defined "the contempt for the Canary Islands demonstrated by the Popular Party, after its refusal to admit the modification of the Immigration Law for processing forces them to assume a humanitarian crisis without precedents alone.
“The PP has shown not only an unbearable lack of humanity and responsibility, but has also abandoned its own people,” added the socialist spokesperson. “Addressing the critical life situation faced by unaccompanied minors arriving in Spain is a matter of Human Rights. The Autonomous Communities are responsible for protecting and guarding these minors until they reach adulthood, and at this time the Canary Islands, due to the migratory routes of access to Spain and its border location, is hosting a number of children greater than its possibilities. The Canary Islands has 2,000 places and has almost 6,000 unaccompanied foreign minors in its care,” she says.
Likewise, González recalled that “the Canary Islands Government and the parliamentary groups, with the exception of VOX, signed the Canary Islands Migration Pact on October 19, 2023.” “On April 23, 2024, the same agents promoted a regulatory modification to guarantee that once the figure of 3,000 minors hosted in the Canary Islands is exceeded, the State will be responsible for distributing the children “by law and not voluntarily” among the rest of the Autonomous Communities. Unfortunately, a regulatory modification has become necessary because voluntary solidarity between the different territories of the country has not worked. In 2023, the distribution agreed between the Autonomous Communities and the sectoral of childhood established the reception of 373 children in different regions of the country. Finally, only 67 were welcomed,” denounced Ariagona González.
“The PP does not defend its land”
That majority decision of the Parliament of the Canary Islands, to promote the legal change essential to guarantee the participation of all the autonomies without exception in the effort to attend to the minors in situations of overflow of the reception network, gave rise to a legal text negotiated between the Government of Spain and the Government of the Canary Islands, which was taken to Congress as a Law Proposal signed by the PSOE, Sumar and Coalición Canaria. The Popular Party has abandoned its people, does not defend its land in a moment of unprecedented social emergency, by preventing the girls and boys who arrive on our coasts from being welcomed in a way that guarantees their rights in dignified reception conditions and must be reprimanded.”
