The chaos in the reception of migrant minors in the Canary Islands: “We are putting misfit kids on the streets”

“We are putting completely maladjusted kids on the streets,” explains Samuel, an employee at a juvenile center in Gran Canaria, by phone. Samuel asks not to reveal his real name, or that of the company he works for, for fear of reprisals, but he assures from his experience that the situation does not invite optimism: “The centers are overcrowded, we do not have the resources to get them out of here.” with specific training, nor with the necessary ethical or moral values.” Samuel reports that in the center where he works there are only three showers for more than 60 children, and the hot water is only enough for ten. “The food is unfortunate because the lowest offer is always used: no one in their right mind would give this food to his children. This makes the kids irascible,” he laments.

This worker's story reveals the cracks in the care of unaccompanied migrant minors that widen every time the islands experience a surge in migration. In 2023, almost 40,000 people have arrived on the islands, an increase of 154% compared to 2022, and, once again, the Government of the Canary Islands has been overwhelmed in the reception of minors, which is its responsibility. Currently, the Canary Islands host almost 4,400 children and adolescents who arrived alone on the islands. “The migratory route was opened in 1994. But we continue improvising,” says Senegalese Mame Cheikh Mbaye, president of the Federation of African Associations in the Canary Islands (FAAC).

The first stoppage that caused the fall rebound occurred in the age determination tests, necessary for those cases in which the minority is not clear. “That overwhelmed us all,” recalls the senior prosecutor of the Canary Islands, María Farnés Martínez. “Suddenly, we found ourselves in Tenerife with the initiation of some 1,900 age determination files, as had never happened before. And we realized that there was barely infrastructure for 20 weekly tests.” The magistrate explains that it was necessary to resort to an emergency solution, facilitated by the State Attorney General, Álvaro García Ortiz: among them, moving agents from the Civil Guard criminalistics service to Tenerife, assigning five prosecutors, forensic doctors, officials and translators to be able to process the files. The tests, in any case, as reported by the Ombudsman and child care NGOs, are being ordered en masse even in cases in which jurisprudence dictates that it is not necessary (when the affected person is undoubtedly a minor or carries documentation that prove it).

But the problem of testing is only one of the issues to be resolved. Another is how it has become normal for minors and adults to live together in the same spaces until the minors' minority status is officially determined. The problem has been detected in the Canary Islands, but many of these cases have been identified once they were in the Peninsula, where they arrived as adults, a fact that raised “great concern” within the Prosecutor's Office, according to Martínez. The ministry has counted at least 200 possible minors registered as adults in the Canary Islands alone. As sources from the NGO Accem have explained to this newspaper, at least another 210 people have stated that they are minors in the Alcalá de Henares and Cartagena camps.

Faced with this new spike, which has brought thousands of minors alone in cayuco, the regional Executive began to improvise emergency devices. It has used the Casas del Mar (a kind of public hotels for sailors) and even industrial warehouses in industrial estates. “I already know that a ship in Salinetas [localidad del municipio de Telde, en Gran Canaria] “It is not the right place,” the senior prosecutor of the Canary Islands admitted to this newspaper. “But at that time it was either that or the port.”

Currently, the Canary Islands has 64 centers for minors, 24 of them open since October, details in a telephone conversation the Minister of Social Welfare, Equality, Youth, Children and Families of the Government of the Canary Islands, Candelaria Delgado (Canary Coalition). “We are still in an emergency situation, even though arrivals have decreased,” she says. The regional Executive delegates the management of the centers to non-profit foundations and associations, which charge about 95 euros per day for each migrant served. The bill amounts to nine million euros per month, according to the Canary Islands president, Fernando Clavijo (Canary Coalition).

The organization that welcomes the most minors is Quorum 77, founded on the islands in 2008 by Sevillian Delia García. It cares for 1,990 children and adolescents in 26 centers spread across Tenerife, Gran Canaria, El Hierro and Fuerteventura. “Here we have profiles of children with greater behavioral complexity,” she says in the office of La Fortaleza, a complex located in the municipality of Santa Brígida (Gran Canaria), surrounded by exclusive chalets.

An apparent peace reigns in this area. But this is not always common currency. Delia García's cell phone, in fact, rings a couple of times with calls from employees reporting an incident on another device. “Of course there are incidents. The issue of consumption [de estupefacientes] It's worrying. Or the commission of some type of crimes. But look at the control that's out there. “We know how to act when problems arise.” He points to the patio, where, sheltered from a heavy rain, 30 minors of North African origin play games of Parcheesi. Meanwhile, in a classroom a few meters away, many other sub-Saharans receive Spanish classes with the help of a translator. “We are not smarter than anyone else. The key is that their basic needs are well met and having a ratio of educators trained according to the profiles of the kids. But not everyone does it the same…”

The shadows of management

Much of the attention to minors has been monopolized, in recent months, by a single entity, the Siglo XXI Social Response Foundation. In 2022, the Prosecutor's Office filed a complaint against this organization for family abandonment, omission of the duty to prosecute crimes and minor injuries in a center already closed in a tourist complex in Gran Canaria. In June, a court in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria accepted a complaint from the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office in which Siglo XXI was accused of allegedly diverting part of the 12.5 million public money. Anti-corruption maintains in its complaint that minors were living poorly in centers that were in a “regrettable” and “alarming state of deterioration.” The last episode occurred at the end of November, when 12 minors reported to the Investigative Court number 6 of Las Palmas that they had suffered mistreatment by educators in another of their centers. They refused to return to the facility, and Save the Children took them in until they were assigned another home. Ten of these minors have ended up precisely at the center managed by Quorum 77. García declines to comment on this specific case.

The counselor, however, assures that she is not considering stopping working with Siglo XXI until the courts rule. “Reports have been prepared and we are looking for alternatives for anticipation. But until there is a
ruling, there is a contract in place that we have to honor.” The counselor, in turn, has asked the Prosecutor's Office to review the actions of Save the Children in the escape of the 12 minors. “We understand that it was not entirely appropriate.”

Once the autumn emergency is over, sources close to the Prosecutor's Office point out that the minors' sections will begin to multiply inspections, and even that the closure of centers will be studied if they are not in good condition. “First we had to separate majors and minors and we have already achieved that. But if we did the inspections before, we would close them all.” Delgado guarantees care in the openings. “When we open a center, inspections are carried out to verify that there are adequate personnel, that the facilities are adequate, and an inspection is carried out periodically.”

Meanwhile, the Canary Islands Executive has multiplied calls for help appealing to the co-responsibility of all Administrations with regard to minors. “It cannot be that it is determined how many minors are referred based on what each community decides,” says Delgado. The Government of the Canary Islands trusts everything to a modification of the law, a promise that the PSOE assumed to ensure the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez. The Canary Islands are already working on a proposal that they will send to Madrid, although it is not yet clear what the legislative change will be to once and for all address the disproportion that exists in the reception of migrant minors depending on the territory.

“The day we stop improvising everything will be fine,” said Cheikh Mbaye on December 18 in a talk given in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. “The only thing that was done in the previous crisis was to alleviate it,” completes Delia García. “A preventive structure was not generated for future migration crises, even though the Canary Islands are in a strategic position for this to happen forever.” Candelaria Delgado assures that the Executive has learned its lesson. “If there is one thing that I am clear about, it is that I am not going to close centers because, apparently, they are no longer necessary. “We will request European funds to create a network of devices of up to 150 seats.”

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