The president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo (San Cristóbal de La Laguna, Tenerife, 52 years old), has dedicated Tuesday and Wednesday of this week to meeting with the parliamentary groups in the Congress of Deputies to obtain their opinions on the reform of the immigration law that the Government of the islands has agreed with the central Executive. The objective is to establish by law that the autonomous communities assume the mandatory reception of unaccompanied foreign minors every time a territory is overwhelmed by arrivals. The leader of the Canary Coalition has attended these meetings accompanied by his predecessor in office, the current Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, the socialist Ángel Víctor Torres, with whom he has prepared this reform draft.
The interview, conducted by telephone, occurs after his meeting with the PSOE, Vox and the PP, CC’s partner in the Canary Islands Executive. The popular group has not closed its position after the meeting. The communities governed by the PP will establish their position next week at the Sectoral Conference on Childhood and Adolescence to be held in the Canary Islands. Vox has been the only group that has shown its categorical rejection, and it remains to be seen the position it adopts in the five communities in which it governs together with the popular ones.
Ask. Is adequate care being provided to minors who arrive in the Canary Islands without their parents?
Answer. We have 5,966 minors. Obviously, with that volume it is impossible for us to guarantee quality care. We are having difficulties serving them. We started the year with 60 foster care resources; We are going for 80. And we no longer have anywhere to enable new ones. We have asked the Ministry of Defense to give us facilities and they have rejected it. Therefore, we are planning tents and bunk beds in the ports, because there is no other physical space. We are in an emergency situation.
Q. How do you assess the parliamentary groups’ reception of the proposal to reform the Immigration Law?
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R. The majority are not only aware of the situation but have been cooperative. They have made some clarifications to the text that the two governments have agreed upon. [central y canario]. Some of them are positive and have enriched him. We have agreed that, once we have completed the document, we will take it to the Sectoral Conference that will be held in the first days of July in the Canary Islands. This is an important issue, given that there is no point in having a legislative modification if the communities are not willing to apply it, which can end up becoming a source of litigation.
Q. Do you think that the popular parliamentary group in Congress has given in to the autonomous communities that it governs in making decisions about its position?
R. No. They are different things. Given that the communities are the main actors when it comes to applying this law, I believe that the appropriate procedure is for this text to be closed in consensus with them. We agree on that. Another different issue is that the one who has to approve the law is Congress. What has the PP preferred? Let us seek consensus in the communities because this will make it easier for groups to [parlamentarios] support him. Let’s look for that consensus [en la Conferencia Sectorial]. If it is not achieved, then we will see what happens when we bring it to the vote. In any case, it would be a failure as a country and a failure as a political class if we are unable to agree on a procedure that only seeks to guarantee the rights of children and minors. Because what the new text is pursuing is that the boys and girls who arrive fleeing hunger, death and rape have their rights preserved.
Q. He has stressed that the legislative text is agreed upon with the Canarian PP because it is part of the Government of the Canary Islands…
R. Not with the Canarian PP, but with all the Canarian political forces, except Vox.
Q. If the position of the communities governed by the PP made this consensus impossible at the Sectoral Conference, would the Government’s pact in the archipelago be at risk?
R. I’m not going to speculate on scenarios that I don’t know if they exist or not. We have to politically decontaminate this process. This document is a document of the Government of the Canary Islands in its entirety, and of the Canary Islands in its entirety, except for Vox. And this is a document that the Government of Spain has assumed in its entirety and it is the one that we are putting on the table. We want it to be agreed upon with consensus.
Q. A common concern for groups and communities is funding. Is it sufficiently guaranteed?
R. It is one of the things that will be improved. We understand that in the explanatory statement and in one of the points of the text it is stated and talked about the financial sufficiency, which is the technical term. But some groups have said that this point could be more explicit, more concrete, clearer, and will be one of the issues that will be improved in these coming days. But, in any case, the will of the State is clear, because it is its obligation to guarantee the financing or the financial record of all this treatment, not only of the minor when he arrives and is placed in another autonomous community, but also during the entire period while the minor is minor.
Q. Do you maintain your intention that this reform be approved in one of the plenary sessions before the holidays?
R. We intend to introduce the improvements that some groups have sent us, and those that will arrive in the next few days, and that the text is ready to be taken to the Sectoral Conference and, immediately afterwards, it can be registered as a bill or the Government of Spain can adopt it as a decree law so that it can be ratified in the last plenary session in July. We have stressed that, in the event that it is carried out as a bill, it should be declared urgent so that it can be approved on July 23 and be in force in the first days of August. The advantage of the decree law is that it comes into force immediately after its publication, which means that we could begin to attend to, above all, the minors who arrive and will continue to arrive.
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