More than four months after the order of the Supreme Court, the Central Government begins to transfer the minors asylum plaintiffs in the Canary Islands to the Peninsula. This Monday, a group of eight teenagers arrived in Cayuco, after fleeing alone from war or persecution, will leave the palms to be welcomed in centers under the umbrella of the state. Although with months of delay, the Executive begins to comply with the sentence that demanded to take care of these minors in their reception system, considering that it is their competence.
The first transfers arrive at a time of political noise and racist tension, after the Pozuelo City Council refused the possible reception of these minors in a state center of the Madrid municipality. In parallel, the Government continues to execute what has defended as the main solution to decongest the reception capacity of the islands: the mandatory distribution plan of unaccompanied foreign minors between autonomous communities approved by Royal Decree in March.
These are some keys of the transfer ordered by the Supreme:
Who are these minors? What is your situation?
They are minor asylum seekers, that is, they are kids who have fled the war or the persecution of their countries without an adult’s company. After their arrival in Cayuco to the Canary Islands, these minors had asked Spain international protection and their application has been admitted process, so they have documentation that accredits them as asylum seekers.
The figures provided by migrations show the especially vulnerable profile of these adolescents: almost 90% of the children who will be transferred in this procedure are Maliannses, that is, they flee the war. Not only are boys, there are also girls and adolescents.
How many asylum seekers are going to be transferred in this process?
At the moment, the Government has confirmed that it will be in charge of the reception of 827 asylum applicants who are currently in the Canary Islands. This Monday begins the transfer of the first group of eight asylum applicants. Thus, every week, the Central Executive will organize two transfers of small groups, around eight minors, from the archipelago to state reception centers of the Peninsula.
The 827 figure corresponds to the number of minors whose asylum application has been admitted for processing. They are the minors whose files will be studied by the central government and the canary to study whether in each case the transfer or permanence in the islands is preferable, so they do not have to be derived all of them, but those who want to do it, given that some for reasons of roots will prefer to remain in the Canary Islands.
Where are they going to take them?
They will be transferred to different territories of the Peninsula, according to the Ministry of Migration. The specific autonomous community is still unknown where the first group of kids will arrive, since the government tries to avoid announcing the specific place where minors will be sent to protect the safety of adolescents, especially at a time when the consequences of hate speeches are increasing.
What is known is that, for the most part, they will be small state responsibility centers. Sources close to the process ensure that their reception will be avoided in large spaces to favor more individualized attention and to avoid reactions against their reception by certain municipal or regional governments.
After the racist reaction from the mayor of Pozueloit has been said that the reception of these minors in Madrid has been ruled out. Is that so?
None of the eight minors who will be derived this Monday will go to Madrid, but migrations have not ruled out that, later, some of the corresponding kids can be transferred to the capital. Minister Elma Saiz has stressed that “there will be no exceptionality” and that adolescents can be welcomed “throughout all territory.”
Ministry sources explain that, as the weeks progress “more resources will be placed on top of the table”, which will be valued alongside the Canary Islands government. The choice of the destination will be done based on the availability of small spaces, since they want to prioritize the centers of reduced dimensions. For this reason that of Pozuelo, with capacity for 400 people, will be avoided at first despite the fact that it was proposed as a possibility in the first meetings held. However, migrations ensures that he has not ruled out and, in case of needing it later, he could resort to him.
Why are they going to be transferred to state centers in this case?
By order of the Supreme Court. In March, the magistrates ordered the central government to take over the minors applicants for asylum welcomed in the Canary Islands Protection Network. It is a precautionary measure that had been requested by the Canary Executive by considering that the reception of minor demanding international protection is a state competence. Although at first, the Government tried to delay compliance with the sentence and defended the mandatory distribution of all minors among autonomous communities was sufficient, the Supreme Host minors alone, but adults or children accompanied by their families.
But is it the same as the transfer of minors from the Canary Islands of which they have been talking about a year?
No. Although it has ended up developing in parallel, it is a different process to the mandatory distribution between autonomous communities of unaccompanied foreign minors from the Canary Islands and Ceuta that has been negotiating the central government and the canary with the rest of the political groups for more than a year.
The order of the Supreme only refers to the minors asylum seekers, considering that their reception (not their guardianship) is the competence of the State and, therefore, must be attended by the state reception system.
However, the mandatory distribution of foreign minors not accompanied that has been discussed for more than a year responds to the Canary Islands request to create a stable system to, in case some territory has its reception network of minors collapsed by the increase in arrivals of migrant minors, it is possible to request the mandatory transfer between autonomous communities. In this case, the procedure is marked by the Royal Decree approved by the Government in March and subsequently endorsed in Congress.
In the case of the mandatory distribution, the kids will not be welcomed by the central government, but will coordinate and finance part of the transfer to the corresponding autonomies.
Being minor, how has the process been done to fulfill the interest of the child?
According to the Ministry of Migration and the Government of the Canary Islands, the procedure is fulfilling all the guarantees to comply with the best interests of the minor. First, the Government has transferred to the first 141 asylum applicants identified by the Canarian Executive to a state reception center located in Las Palmas.
There, the NGO encompasses, in coordination with the technicians of the Secretary of State for Migration and the Canarian Childhood Ministry are making “individualized and detailed assessment” of each file, with interviews with the kids under the supervision of the Fiscal Ministry, according to sources of the portfolio directed by Elma Saiz. The objective, they add, is to fulfill the best interests of each minor, so they will only voluntarily transferred. If minors do not want due to their strong roots in the archipelago, they will not be transferred.
What has been the position of the PP on the transfers ordered by the Supreme?
Unlike its reaction on the mandatory distribution plan for minors by autonomous communities, the PP has not generally opposed the transfer of asylum seeing children. Being a court order, from Genoa they understand that it must be fulfilled. It is a decision that will barely affect the autonomous communities where they go, since the State will take care of its reception and the expenses linked to it. What will take care of is the regional services that these kids may require, such as education and health, as with any other person who resides in their territory.
The only one that opposed the possibility of transferring some of these minors to Madrid was that of Isabel Díaz Ayuso and, above all, the mayor of the Madrid municipality, who came to order the closure of the center proposed by the Ministry after requesting an urban inspection.
And at what point is the mandatory distribution of migrant minors among autonomous communities?
Since the approval of the Royal Decree that allows the mandatory distribution of migrant minors in case of humanitarian emergency, the central government and the Canary have continued processing several of the bureaucratic steps required by the new regulations to start with the transfers. After presenting the figures of minors that each community will have to house, the Executive intends to begin the transfers between the end of August and the beginning of September, although at first Julio had marked as a start date. Most of these kids will be referred to the Community of Madrid, Andalusia and the Valencian Community.
In this case, the PP and its regional governments have been totally against the cast. Several regional executives, such as Madrid and Aragon, have resorted to the regulations before different judicial bodies.
If these minors before were welcomed by the autonomous communities, what does it mean that now asylum seekers go to the state system?
Until now, the reception of all the minors guarded, regardless of whether they were Spaniards, migrants or asylum seekers, was the responsibility of the autonomous communities. On the other hand, the attention to asylum seekers without resources depends on the central executive, but the minor plaintiffs of protection remained autonomous competence as the condition of minor over that of any other prevailed. This sentence, appealing to the saturation of the islands, opens the door to change this criterion and that ends up weighing more its situation as a protection demanding than that of minor, an approach that usually worries organizations specialized in childhood. In the case of this judgment, the magistrates stressed the saturation of the centers in the islands as one of the arguments to order the government to assume their responsibility for these kids.
It will be necessary to be aware of the next sentences of the Supreme in this regard, given that the government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso has also asked the Court that the Central Executive takes over the reception of asylum applicants currently housed in the centers of the Community of Madrid.
Source: www.eldiario.es
