The Deputy Minister of Social Rights of the Government of the Canary Islands, Gemma Martínez, said back in January that the archipelago is “clearly facing an humanitarian emergency situation” in the care of unaccompanied foreign minors, she appealed to all the administrations to take responsibility, as well as to the Government of Spain and the European Union (EU), during a meeting held with the representatives of the seven island Cabildos focused on addressing and specifying measures to care for unaccompanied migrant minors.

Martínez recognised then that the Canary Islands “are making an enormous effort” in the face of a “humanitarian drama”  and met with representatives of the central government and the other autonomous communities to organise the referral of unaccompanied foreign minors, under the tutelage of the regional Executive, to transfer them to the Peninsula.
The central government at that time had transferred a budget of €10 million to the Canary Islands to care for these minors, however they stipulated that it would be “necessary for the EU to realise that the Canary Islands archipelago is the southern-most border of Europe and as such cannot just be left alone” to deal with the large numbers in their care.
EU Commissioner
Martínez met with the European Commissioner for the Interior, Ylva Johansson, and her department to communicate to the EU that foreign minors, who arrive in the archipelago on peteras and cayucos, “cannot remain the exclusive responsibility of this autonomous community, but of all of Europe.”
She pointed out that migratory flows “will continue in the coming months and this makes it more necessary than ever” to organise to have a “more fluid” system of transfer to the Peninsula and of obtaining European funds to finance these resources for the reception of these youths by Island Cabildos and the Government of the Canary Islands.
At the time she also pointed out that in the month of January 2020 the Canary Islands were caring for a total of 540 unaccompanied foreign minors, and just a year later the figure had reached 2,656 minors,  an increase of 367%.
26 emergency facilities for the care of minors
The Ministry for Social Rights of the Government of the Canary Islands, headed up by Noemí Santana, has had to establish 26 emergency resource facilities for the care of minors, 16 of which have been on Gran Canaria, eight on Tenerife and two on Fuerteventura.
In total, up to the end of January 2021, the islands already had in their care 2,656 unaccompanied minors, Gran Canaria had 1,697; Tenerife 653; Lanzarote 151; Fuerteventura 69; La Palma 30; La Gomera 10; and El Hierro, 46. The current total, according to The Canary Islands Government Spokesperson, Julio Perez, now stands at 2,561, just 95 fewer than 3 months ago, a surprising enough figure even if you include the 101 who have travelled to the mainland and the approximately 90 or so individuals who were found to be adults pretending to by minors.  There have been NGOs who have estimated a much higher number of minors may actually be in the system, who may have arrived and been erroneously placed in adult camps.

Canary Islands Governments currently care for 2,561 Menores Extranjeros No Acompañados (MENAs) Unaccompanied Minors
Spokesperson and Canary Islands Government Minister of Public Administrations, Justice and Security, Julio Pérez, demanded, last Wednesday, a new law to ensure the fair distribution of unaccompanied migrant minors throughout Spain.
Pérez, appearing at a regional parliamentary commission to discuss the government response to this migratory phenomenon, detailed that in the Canary Islands there are 2,561 minors who have arrived on the islands by patera and only 101 have been referred to the Peninsula. He listed the numbers accepted by other regional executives throughout Spain: 18 have gone to Castilla y León, 25 to Extremadura, 15 to Navarra and 43 to Catalonia.
“This is solidarity” when the Canary Islands have asked for help, lamented the Minister, who said that these figures “are not valid”, because each community just requesting the number they want clearly does not work, but rather, in his view, a law is required that forces their distribution more equitably.
It does not “make sense”, he said, for the Canary Islands to host 2,561 children while it is simply “good will or solidarity” that compels other communities to join in the care of unaccompanied minors who have arrived on the islands by boat.
Pérez insisted on the importance of a law that establishes the distribution of unaccompanied minors based on several factors including population and resources, and not solely on their proximity to the border.
“The Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands [should] not have to care for all the children who arrive” Pérez said, and admitted that little progress has been made in this regard.
He emphasised that the European Union says that there must be mandatory co-responsibility and he defended the importance of this law to escape perpetuating some new version of colonialism, that has gone from exploiting to locking up migrants.
In his opinion, “emigration is a consequence of injustice and is a global phenomenon”, saying that the Canary Islands feel a legal and political responsibility, even though it is not their exclusive competence.
He has also requested that the European Union put Frontex patrol boats off the coast of West Africa, extending their usual zone of operation beyond the frontier coastal waters, to help, in his words, African countries to escape underdevelopment without appearing paternalistic, and was critical of this having been done with Morocco in an effort to promote better border security and development programs to halt migratory flows.
Importantly, he said he fully supports regular migration, saying that over the last year 23,608 immigrants arrived to the islands, and as of May 4, 4,885 people had arrived just this year.
According to Pérez, a total of just 3,328 irregular migrants remain on the islands, which means, he said, that “the others have left”, based on data from the Spanish Government Delegation in the Canary Islands.

Members of the regional parliament, from the various parties, wanted to add their voice to the search for solutions:
CC-PNC deputy Jana González, who had requested that Pérez appear in parliament, indicated that the Canary Islands can cope “no longer” and demanded the distribution of migrants throughout the national territory and, specifically, of minors to give them good social and educational care.
The PP deputy, Luz Reverón, denounced the inability of the Canary Islands and Spanish governments to articulate effective measures to put an end to the deaths at sea, while lamenting that there are young Africans wandering the streets without hope and without solutions within the Canary Islands, referring to the archipelago as de facto “prison islands”.
The Ciudadanos Deputy Ricardo Fernández de la Puente called attention to the fact that the rights of migrants are repeatedly violated in the Canary Islands, which has become a place for the “deprivation of rights” and where they have recorded “unacceptable numbers of deaths.”
The deputy for Sí Podemos Canarias, Francisco Déniz, said that migrants arriving by boat are experiencing “a real calamity and a human misfortune”, in the face of which the Canary Islands Government has done “everything in its power” and blamed the European Union for turning the islands into prisons for migrants.
The deputy for Nueva Canarias, Luis Campos, said he is in favour of a “clear, strong and forceful” migration policy in which it is “essential” that Government of the Canary Islands participate.

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The Ombudsman, Francisco Fernández Marugán, tasked, as the Public Defender, to investigate Spain’s response to The Canary Migrant crisis, has directly demanded that the Ministry of the Interior cease “police practices” that prevent migrants from leaving the Canary Islands to go to mainland Spain.  He clarified that these measures are not justifiable, even through arguments for immigration control, nor does stopping onward travel avoid the so-called “pull effect”, as the central government have apparently maintained. During his appearance in the Spanish Senate, to present his report on the migration crisis in the Canary Islands and explain the result of the inspections carried out in recent weeks, the commissioner said that conditions have at least “improved” so far this year, in reception camps set up for specifically this purpose, but that a pending issue in the management of migrants trying to continue on their route from the Archipelago remains.  He called for nationwide “solidarity distribution”, from among all Spain’s autonomous communities, to help care for the 2,776 unaccompanied minors that the Canary Islands community is currently protecting, in a situation that he described as an “unprecedented emergency”.

Fernández Marugán, Spain’s Ombudsman whose job it is to scrutinise the Government of Spain, said that the 3,780 migrant arrivals confirmed in the Canary Islands so far this year, up until the middle April (the latest official figures), represents and increase of 2,610 more people than those who arrived in the same period of time last year, that is a confirmed trend over recent months. In addition, he made clear that now “there is a significant deterioration in the health of the people who arrive” and that the arrival of women and children is increasing. So far this year, women have accounted for 13% of these arrivals, and 20% are children or adolescents. “Here is a new challenge. Migration was fundamentally male, without major health problems and as economic migrants. Today there is no such homogeneous migration ” he said, warning that the evidence points to increasing complexities in the management of migrant arrivals.
For Marugán, the “limitation of the movement of migrants is one of the problems of the migratory phenomenon”, he pointed out that “these limitations cannot be defended from the perspective of migratory control or to avoid the call effect.”
“You have to go the other way. The judicial resolutions have ordered the Ministry of the Interior to cease this practice,” emphasised the commissioner. He reminded the Senate that the majority of Moroccan nationals are provided with a passport and with a return resolution but that because of the current situation these “are not enforceable because repatriation flights are canceled.” He highlighted the cases of migrants from other origins “who cannot be repatriated to their countries because that route is closed at the moment”, such as the case of Senegal.”The return system is today impractical,” he stressed.
The Ombudsman insisted that “it is profoundly inappropriate to convert particular areas of Spain or Europe into places of deprivation of rights, such as the right to free movement”, and that “reception places cannot become simply places where repatriation is expected.”
“We must move, without further delay, to avoid this legal limbo and see to what extent these citizens have minimally resolved their future conditions,” he insisted, referring to the fact that large numbers of migrants already have an onward plan, many with contacts, friends and families that they are trying to reach.  As things stand right now, the state have to take full responsibility for clothing feeding and accommodating incoming migrants, with little or no ability to return them to countries of origin or transit, primarily due to pandemic restrictions.
The commissioner also took time to denounce the fact that women and children arriving on the Canary Islands often spend the first few days after their arrival being held at police stations and said that these are “police techniques” that should be done away with. “It is not a very humane way of acting,” saying that even “mothers with children have just been modestly restrained and are detained for 72 hours under very harsh conditions. This practice must cease immediately and these people must be referred to humanitarian facilities and not police facilities,” he said.
Migrant Minors
He said he also considers it to be a “regrettable fact” that there are minors in adult centres “due to the inadequate application of protocols that must be resolved.” He referred to the cases of children who have been separated from their mothers in these first days of arrival.. “It is a very hard action and we must see how this issue is resolved,” he said. “The children no longer come from their own country, they come from Africa, and we have to do everything possible so that these people are received with the greatest possible dignity,” he stressed.
One of the issues that Ombudsman Marugán had the most to say about was on the subject of unaccompanied minors, insistently calling for distribution among all Spain’s  autonomous communities as a whole. “Minors cannot fall exclusively under the guardianship of the Canarian authorities. All Administrations must agree on a solidarity distribution ”, he urged. “In view of the figures, it is not reasonable for the Canary Islands to assume the challenge posed by this protection alone, it requires the collaboration and solidarity of the rest of the centres on the Peninsula” he demanded “and a political will for adequate financing by the State”.
Latest inspections
The commissioner explained that during recent inspections by several officials between the 11th and 17th of this month, to a total of six reception centres and to review minors on the islands of Gran Canaria, Tenerife, Fuerteventura and El Hierro, it has been noted that “there has been an effort made, and it has been known, to find emergency solutions to face planning that has not always been the most appropriate”.
Specifically, the Ombudsman’s inspectors looked at the detention centres in Barranco Seco (Las Palmas) and Hoya Fría (Tenerife); the shared management centres – where Covid-19 positive migrants are isolated – Nave del Queso (Fuerteventura), Palmera Mar (Gran Canaria) and Albergue Frontera (El Hierro); as well as the centres for minors on Gran Canaria and Tenerife. They also visited the centres at Canarias 50, Colegio León and Nave Bankia in Las Palmas; Las Raíces and Las Canteras on Tenerife; and El Matorral on Fuerteventura. All of them, have been qualified for the reception of migrants within the framework of the Spanish Government’s “Canary Islands Plan”. They also visited the port of Arguineguín in Mogán (Gran Canaria), which, according to the Ombudsman, “was empty.”
“The Canary Islands Plan” he said “was the search for an answer to the lack of emergency centres. Coordination must be improved, but we are no longer starting from scratch as happened months ago…  We have started on the path to resolve the problem of arrivals, but problems remain to be solved,” he emphasised. He referred, for example, to various situations and complaints from migrants at different centres visited, many of whom have been transferred in recent weeks from hotels where they were temporarily housed to tents in the camps.
The Ombudsman explained to Spain’s deputies and senators the content of his report on the migration crisis on the Islands in 2020, which was first presented in the Cortes on March 3, and reiterated that it in his professional opinion, the report found that “the authorities were not prepared for an adequate response, that there was a lack of foresight, lack of coordination and a notable absence of reception measures”, as well as that “rights were repeatedly violated and the reception conditions profoundly degraded.”
He recalled that there were few lawyers available and that the spaces for them to act properly “are scarce or non-existent”, and he said that on many occasions lawyers are limited to validating with their signature the resolution of the returns. He urged that the Bar Associations ensure legal assistance “in adequate conditions.” He also denounced the shortage of interpreters of the African languages ​​in which the migrants express themselves.

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Air Force photograph showing twelve survivors and five deceased on board a cuyaco located in August 2020, by Search and Rescue (SAR), some 205 kilometres south of Gran Canaria. At that time there were twelve survivors on board. One died shortly after in the Maritime Rescue helicopter evacuating him.88 people so far this year are known to have died trying to reach the islands migrating by boat via The Canary Route. On average, the current death rate stands at one person every 32 hours, according to the data provided to Spanish news agency Efe by the two United Nations agencies that specialise in matters of migration, UNHCR, the refugee agency, and the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).  These are the most accurate, verified figures we have.

According to the count carried out by the IOM’s Missing Migrants program, since the beginning of 2021, at least 87 people have lost their lives trying to reach the Canary Islands by boat, of which only 47 bodies have been recovered, a number that includes the 17 corpses still aboard a cuyaco (open boat) found by chance, adrift, 490km south of El Hierro, from which 3 survivors were rescued by helicopter and are now receiving critical care.
Among the victims so far this year, there are least eight children and six women, although the IOM states that the data are incomplete, because they usually do not receive much information on the age or sex of the occupants of the boats who perish at sea.  They collect their information from a range of sources including groups like Caminando Fronteras, a Spanish NGO that reports the departure of boats to the authorities to enable their rescue.  It is impossible to know about every departure along the more than 2,500km of West African coastline from where most start their journeys, and so it is impossible to know how many are never seen again.
Since the beginning of this year, 4,361 immigrants have arrived on the Canary Islands, or been rescued at sea near the islands, travelling in 119 boats, cayucos and inflatables, according to the latest updated figures from Spain’s Government Delegation.
The official record, published by the Ministry of the Interior, indicates that last year 1,936 immigrants had arrived on the islands between January 1 and April 30, a figure that this year has more than doubled (+ 125%, an increase of 2,425).
The mortality rate on The Canary Route currently stands at one death for every 49 arrivals (4,361/88). Throughout the balance of 2020, that number ended up being almost double: one confirmed death for every 27 arrivals (23,023/850 deaths confirmed by the IOM at the end of the year).

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A passport and an asylum application are sufficient documents for any migrant to legally travel from the Canary Islands to mainland Spain. This fact, under the law, was formally recognised by a judge at the Contentious-Administrative Court number 5, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, this week. The magistrate, Ángel Teba, concluding the hearing, ordered the Jefatura Superior de Policía (Canary Islands’ Policia Nacional Headquarters) to allow a migrant, who was trying to travel from Gran Canaria to Barcelona on December 11, 2020, to fly. According to this ruling, seen by Independent Journalism Spanish Language news portal CanariasAhora, the man had been detained, along with 21 other people, at the airport because “they had a return resolution in force, in order to either proceed with their repatriation within 72 hours, or requesting they be detained at a CIE.” (Centro de internamiento de extranjeros – A foreigners’ internment centre)
Reporting: Timon .:.  –  Image by Antonio Cansino

The lawyer of the Secretariat of Migration of the Diocese of the Canary Islands, Daniel Arencibia, described feeling “very excited” by the judgement because “for months we have seen very gross breaches” by the police who, he pointed out, “are [meant] to fulfil rights, not to violate them.” He insisted that “no one can be left imprisoned on an island and deprived of their liberty without judicial authorisation.” In any case, he says, the order is precautionary and so there is still a possibility of appeal. But, while it is in force, he hopes that the Police will apply the principle of equality before the law and extend this order to all migrants who find themselves in the same situation.
Dozens of migrants, possibly hundreds, have been blocked at Canarian ports and airports from continuing their journeys attempting to migrate to Spain. During the last few months of 2020, Spain’s Ministry of the Interior reinforced documentation controls, both at origin and destination, in Spanish airports and ports, in order to stop migrants, who tried to leave the islands for the Peninsula, travelling from the Archipelago using their own funds and tickets bought. The central government decided to take advantage of health controls, meant to stop the spread of COVID-19, in order to block the free transit of people who had arrived in boats, known as pateras and cuyacos, arriving on the shores of the Islands, despite the fact that, by law, migrants who are in “an irregular administrative situation” do have the right to move freely throughout the national territory, as long as their return order has not been executed. In particular, migrant arrivals are all subject to strict covid-19 controls at their point of entry, and so are actually the least likely population to become vectors in spreading infection during the pandemic.
In short, under the law, the Spanish authorities had just 72 hours to enforce repatriation orders, and by not doing so, for what ever reason, migrants gain the right to free movement within Spain, so long as their paperwork is correct.  An asylum application and a valid passport is enough to travel onwards to anywhere in Spain.
Asked about what instructions had been given by the Ministry of the Interior to the National Police, to prevent migrants from flying to the Peninsula, the Ministry of the Interior, headed up by Fernando Grande-Marlaska, replied that “when a foreigner accesses the national territory irregularly, they are subject to a return procedure, during which they are detained for a period of 72 hours, for the governmental authority to order their return… After this period, if it is not possible to enable the return, the foreigner is released”.
In these cases, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry, the only existing limitations to travel on internal flights are related to compliance with regulations established by the different airlines and to compliance with the different restrictive perimeters and confinement measures that may exist within that Autonomous Community.
The judicial order also establishes that the only restrictions applicable to migrants, who try to travel to the Peninsula, are those imposed by each autonomous community to stop COVID-19.

Editor’s Comment:
Undoubtedly there is some wiggle room here, and the decision may well be appealed.  It is arguable whether an asylum seeking migrant should be allowed to travel under Alert Level 3 restrictions, for instance, which ban non-essential travel for residents, however allows tourists to travel on production of the appropriate test results.  We are in a pandemic still, these things will need to be considered with every action required under the law.
Although the “blockade” on migrants trying to leave The Canary Islands in no way accounts for the majority, to our understanding, of those who have arrived here irregularly over the last year, it is a fact that large numbers of those who arrived with their own funds, and tickets to travel, and who followed all the correct procedures to establish their status under the law, were stopped from travelling, forced to stay on the islands, unable to reach their final destinations.  They were delayed, and searched and interrogated unnecessarily, meaning that they missed their flights and ships and were forced to rely on the wholly inadequate migrant reception system, while they tried to find their way forward.
Whatever your beliefs about the fact of migration.  It remains true that many of the migrants who were forced to stay on the islands last year, could have carried on their journeys legally, and thus relieved some of the pressure on a system that was so ill-prepared, despite repeated warnings, that it became quickly overloaded to the point where emergency solutions needed to be hastily found.  Luckily there were enough empty hotels for us to be able to avoid a much worse crisis, allowing for migrant arrivals, at least temporarily, to be accommodated, and hoteliers compensated, which worked out to be the best short-term solution available.
Now many of those migrants who were blocked from travelling find themselves in camps, and in some cases at least, subject to deplorable conditions.  Many of them have friends and family in mainland Spain, to whom they were trying to reach, without asking for handouts or help or assistance, but now find themselves stuck as burdens to the reception system, when they would much prefer to be trying to complete their journeys to find a better life.
It is a difficulty.  One that we must address in the weeks and months to come, as the potential for further arrivals begins to increase along with improving weather conditions.  It is highly unlikely that migrants will need to be accommodated in tourist establishments, particularly as tourism begins to slowly return, but the question remains: What is the plan?  How will we be dealing with any greater numbers of arrivals?  Has anyone stopped for long enough, to lay out a new set of protocols to help us ensure that resident’s fears and, in many cases, legitimate demands do not lead to the sort of aimless protests we saw on our streets last year?
How will we ensure that all people’s rights, as enshrined in Spanish law, including resident’s and migrant’s rights, are served justly?
How can we stop reactionaries and angry, fearful people from controlling the narrative in what is still, essentially, a humanitarian crisis, far beyond most people’s control?  Who is it we want to show ourselves to be?
Whatever your views on how migrants arrive on The Canary Islands, and the fact of their trying to continue their journeys onwards, using their own funds to buy flight and ferry tickets, the law is clear:

Spain has just 72 hours to enforce any return order, or release any person in their custody not subject to criminal charges. They are free to travel under the same conditions as everyone else.

Anyone with a valid passport and the correct paperwork, under the current legislation, is allowed to travel within Spanish territories. That is the fact of it, and that is the law. If you want to change it, then you need to change the law.
 
Otherwise, we must live within the law, and we rightly should expect everyone else to do so too. The Canary Islands are not a prison, we are a Spanish territory and people have rights, and it is our job to protect those rights. What we do best, here, is treat people well and with dignity. A world class destination, we offer hospitality and safety, for everyone.  We work together, and we follow the law.
 
Let’s end this blockade.
 

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