Immigration is not new to the Canary Islands. We have been seeing for more than two decades how African migration routes cross our waters, how boats arrive on our coasts, how unaccompanied minors enter an overwhelmed protection system, how municipal social services perform impossible balancing acts to care for people who should not be on the streets. What is new —and deeply alarming— is that at this point the State continues to not assume its responsibility in a firm, sustained and co-responsible manner.
The Canary Islands cannot continue alone. It cannot continue to welcome with insufficient resources, assuming powers that do not correspond to it and receiving promises that are diluted as soon as they disappear from the media agenda. It is not fair to the institutions, but much less so to the people, both migrants and Canarians, who live together every day in neighborhoods with saturated services, schools without sufficient reinforcements or health centers without resources adapted to a changing reality.
In recent months, the FEMP's Commission on Immigration and Social Inclusion, which I have the honor of chairing, has raised its voice clearly: the municipalities, councils and communities that assume the first line of immigration management need more than understanding: we need resources, coordination and, above all, real political commitment from the State.
Because it is not reasonable for the Canary Islands —with 2 million inhabitants and a geographical position that makes us the southern border of Europe— to manage a structural and complex situation alone. Because it is not acceptable that we are used as a containment space, while effective solutions such as the solidarity referral of migrants to other autonomous communities, the stable financing of the reception of unaccompanied foreign minors, or the reinforcement of public services in municipalities with greater migratory pressure continue to be postponed.
And it is also intolerable that local entities have to beg for resources when we are the ones who provide an immediate and real response to the social emergency. Migration policies cannot continue to be designed from a distance or from ignorance of the reality of border territories.
The Canary Islands is not asking for privileges. It asks for justice. It asks that its role be respected, that it be listened to, that it be provided with tools. That they stop looking the other way every time there is a massive arrival, every time a center collapses, every time a minor sleeps in undignified conditions.
It is not a partisan issue. It is a State issue. A matter that affects social cohesion, human dignity and territorial equality. If action is not taken with vision, courage and co-responsibility, it is not only the Canary Islands that are failing. The whole country is failing.
Immigration is not going to stop. Because it responds to deep, structural and human causes. But its management must change. And for that, the State needs to be there. Not with speeches, but with facts. Not with occasional visits, but with sustained public policies. Because when it comes to human rights, there are no excuses.
Jacobo Medina, vice president of the FEMP's Commission on Immigration and Social Inclusion
