The Minister of Youth and Children, Sira Rego, has announced that the bill to introduce a mandatory system for the distribution of minor migrants will be registered in the Congress of Deputies next Monday. “The groups that make up the coalition government intend to register the proposal this Monday the reform of Article 35 of the Aliens Actto process it,” Rego said during an official visit to Asturias. Sources from La Moncloa and the Socialist parliamentary group consulted by elDiario.es indicate that they are not aware that the text will be presented in parliament this Monday.
According to the announcement of the Minister of Youth, the draft of the reform of the immigration law, which was presented to the communities this Wednesday at the Children's Sector Conference, will be registered by the PSOE and Sumar, although sources from the Socialist parliamentary group did not confirm that point to elDiario.es. The Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, has mentioned on several occasions the intention of the central government to register the legislative initiative in the month of July in order to begin the processing of the regulations “as soon as possible” in light of the humanitarian emergency of the Canary Islands, with the aim of approving the measure before the end of July.
However, the support that the bill would receive is up in the air, since the PP is crucial to the progress of the regulations in Congress and has not made its position clear at this time. Alberto Núñez Feijóo left his decision on the proposed reform of the immigration law to the autonomous communities, but during the sectoral conference last Wednesday, the autonomous governments of the PP postponed their decision on the matter en bloc and asked for more time to study the draft regulations.
The only agreement that emerged from the meeting was the voluntary distribution of 347 minors from the Canary Islands to the whole of Spain, which meant giving the green light to the figures corresponding to 2024 of a non-binding transfer pact that has been applied since 2022. The votes in favor of the PP in this sense were enough to trigger the disintegration of Vox in the autonomous governments that it shares with the formation of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, despite the fact that in these communities they should only receive between 16 and 30 children. This is an inadequate pact to improve the situation of the Archipelago, which estimates that it will have to transfer more than 2,000 minors.
Reform
The current regulations make the distribution of minors to other parts of Spain very complicated. When this is attempted through voluntary agreements, such as those approved on Wednesday, the procedure involves cumbersome bureaucratic procedures and is ultimately lengthy. It is common for voluntary commitments not to be fulfilled: last year, up to Twelve communities did not welcome any of the dedicated minorsFaced with this situation, the Canary Islands Government and the Central Government have committed to a change in regulations so that, in times of saturation of the centres for minors in certain areas, a distribution throughout Spain is systematically activated, with criteria previously established by law, in order to avoid lengthy negotiations.
The reform, as proposed in the draft to which elDiario.es has had access, would allow the Spanish government to intervene when communities do not show solidarity in welcoming young people rescued at the southern border, as has happened until now. The agreed approach proposes that transfers be carried out in those communities where the minors received reach 150% of the capacity of the allocated places. In the Canary Islands, this limit would be around 3,000 minors.
The number of children and adolescents crossing the Atlantic route without family has not stopped growing in recent years. With the latest arrivals, the Canary Islands Executive protects 5,966 children and adolescents in 80 devices that have already collapsed. The emergency declared by the Ministry of Migration in 2023 has allowed the Ministry of Social Affairs to open new reception spaces with agility, but these do not always meet the minimum conditions of habitability.
In recent weeks, several complaints have come to light that point to unsanitary conditions, overcrowding and attacks in some centres of the archipelago. The proposal of the central and Canarian governments includes the modification of an article of the Immigration Act with the aim of introducing a mandatory system for the distribution of minors in the event that a community reaches 150% of its reception places.