“The Government of Spain has complied with the process of relocating unaccompanied migrant minors, in defense of the law and human rights.” This was pointed out today by Ángel Víctor Torres, Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, after a meeting with the delegates of the Government and the ministries involved, to monitor the situation of migrant children in the three communities that have declared the migration contingency: Canaries, Ceuta and Melilla.
The minister, who has announced that these meetings will also be held in the two autonomous cities in the coming weeks, has reviewed the situation, both of the application of the amendment of Article 35, and of compliance with the request of the Supreme Court to improve the conditions of these children and adolescents, who were crowded in the border territories.
There are already 877 children and adolescents who have been relocated to other autonomous communities. “The Government of Spain complies. It is a milestone that there are already almost 1,000 minors relocated, improving their quality of life and protecting their rights, without any problem of coexistence,” said the minister, who has described the measure as “an essential law.”
On the other hand, Torres has referred to compliance with the Supreme Court’s orders in relation to unaccompanied migrant minors seeking asylum. “The 693 asylum seekers, whose files were sent to the Government of Spain, are already in the National System of International Protection. Therefore, the Government of Spain takes for granted the mandate of the Supreme Court.” At the moment, of these 693 people, there are 567 minors and 126 who have reached the age of majority and are still in the System. Of these 567 boys and girls, 436 have been transferred to the Peninsula and 131 remain in state resources in the Canary Islands.
The minister has also emphasized the need for the autonomous communities to expedite the procedures for the relocation of migrant minors who arrived before the approval of the Law. That is, for those who were already in the border territories before August 29, 2025. In this case, the law establishes that their files should have been sent to the Government of Spain before November 21, four months before March 21, when the deadline for processing them would expire.
“As of November 21, the Government of the Canary Islands had sent only 432 files out of the 2,133 that were likely to be sent. We reach out and keep working, but we need the dossiers to be forwarded. We have already resolved 431, that is, almost all of those sent until November, but it is necessary to speed up the shipment in order to have them resolved in March,” he said.
The minister has valued the work of the government delegations and the ministries involved. Today’s meeting was attended by, in addition to the Minister, the Secretary of State for Territorial Policy, Arcadi Spain; the Secretary of State for Migration, Pilar Cancela; the Secretary of State for Youth and Childhood, Rubén Pérez; the Government delegate in the Canary Islands, Anselmo Pestana; the Government delegate in Ceuta, Cristina Pérez; and the Government delegate in Melilla, Sabrina Moh.