The Delegate of the Government, Sabrina Moh, held a meeting today with the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, in which the measures on unaccompanied minors were addressed.
The meeting, which took place at the headquarters of the Delegation of the Government of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, has served for the ministerial responsible to meet telematically with all the delegates of the different autonomous communities, and in person with the delegates in the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, to report on the steps taken with the modification of article 35 of the Law on Foreigners, and those that are going to be taken in the coming weeks.
As Torres explained, in statements to the media, on Tuesday a Royal Decree was approved that develops the legal modification and on August 26 another Royal Decree of capacity will be approved, which will arbitrate the mechanism so that the autonomous communities have three days to express if their capacity triples the number of unaccompanied minors, “something that happens at the moment in the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla”.
A situation, he has made clear, “that any territory can live”. For this reason, he stressed “it is positive to have managed to modify article 35 of the Law on Foreigners, so that with the approved parameters, saturated territories can alleviate the situation they are living”.
The Minister has detailed that the administrative procedure begins in the Subdelegation of the Government of the territory where the child is, and with the signature of the Delegate of the corresponding Government will begin to take the steps to complete a process that establishes 15 days so that minors who arrive in a saturated community can be relocated and for those who are already in those communities that exceed their capacity have one year for the relocation of minors throughout the Spanish territory.
It is a “guaranteed and obligatory system”, said Torres, who has called for “the collaboration of all the autonomous communities”, regardless of the meaning of his vote in the parliamentary approval. “This is a question of human rights, of a humanitarian nature, of equalizing the superior law of the child wherever it comes from,” he said, comparing the attention given to children from Ukraine with that given to those arriving from African countries such as Mali. “We must welcome all minors, whatever the color of their skin,” he said.
Children of Melilla
In his speech to the media, the head of the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory addressed the PP, “who voted against that modified article 35, which has given the order to the People’s Party to take those autonomous communities to the Constitutional Court for approval,” and asked the opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, a question.
“He says that in September he will present a list of laws that would repeal. Would it repeal the amendment to Article 35? Would he drop, because he voted against, a majority decision of the Parliament in which parties from different places approved and supported that minors who are in Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands, where, by the way, the PP governs, are in the rest of Spanish territory?”, he wanted to know.
Ángel Víctor Torres has also wondered if the heads of those territories – Ceuta, Melilla and the Canary Islands – are going to remain “silent”. “Those of us who do want this fair measure to take place are the Government of Spain and the Government Delegates of all the autonomous communities of our country and the parties that voted yes to that fair decision,” he concluded.