Two weeks ago, a teacher from Gran Canaria received a farewell letter: “I want to tell you that tomorrow I will go to Las Palmas, then to the peninsula, where, I don’t know.” Aliyoun* says in the audio recording that after two years on the island, he will be transferred to the Canaria 50 Center in the capital as part of the transfer of minor refugees ordered by the Supreme Court. “I have to go,” he says. “I can’t break the rules. I want to continue my studies, do this course and stay in the Canary Islands, but that’s life.”
In recent months, residents of the island have mobilized to demand that the competent authorities, the Canary Islands government and the state review the criteria governing these referrals. The socio-cultural association “Ak Wanak” (“What Belongs to Everyone”), based in the municipality of San Bartolomé de Tirajana and founded by teachers from the island during the 2020 humanitarian emergency, demands that the will of minors be taken into account and that those with roots in the Canary Islands be able to stay.
“Wouldn’t it make more sense to move those who arrived recently rather than those who have been there for just over two years?” Entity questions in a statement. “Some have relatives on the peninsula, and they are here for a short time and want to leave. The problem is with the children who have been at school with us for two years and who have a series of relationships. They are in the football team, receiving vocational training… they will cut all that,” they say from Ak Wanak..
The testimony of another minor who has already been housed in a protection center on the peninsula says: “I am resilient, but everything here is more difficult. Even if I cannot, I will endure because I cannot do anything else.” He reaches adulthood in five months and intends to work in order to save up and be able to return to the Canary Islands.
Representatives of the association met last Wednesday with the government delegate in the Canary Islands, Anselmo Pestana, to learn more about the details of these transfers and the demands of minors who wish to remain in the Canary Islands without having to abandon their asylum application. Sources from the association confirm that in some cases, minors have given up international protection simply to be able to remain in Gran Canaria.
This organization was born with the aim of supporting students who survived the Atlantic Migration Route five years ago. “The conditions were miserable,” says one teacher. “We were seeing needs of all kinds. There was a shortage of food, clothes, telephones, and the means to get to class… We tried to give them what we could by taking it out of our pockets.” Now, everything that was built is at risk of dilution. The teacher confirms: “They accept having to leave, but it is very difficult because for the second time they are cut off from those bonds that they have established, and they have to leave their studies even though it was very difficult for them to learn Spanish… and it breaks them emotionally.”
Teachers in southern Gran Canaria are not the only ones who have organized to ask entrenched youth to stay. Families from the north of the island also rallied to stop the referral of people known in the town as the “Children of Araucas”. The residents of this municipality requested that minors be able to wait in their reception centers for the interview that assesses the interests of each child, instead of conducting it in the Canaria 50 center.
Supreme order
On October 23, the Supreme Court granted the state a “non-extendable” period of 15 days to comply with the order issued by the court in March. In it, he called on the central government to transfer asylum minors hosted in the Canary Islands network to its international protection system. The Spanish government confirmed that it had indeed complied with the order, “despite all the difficulties and complexities of the jurisdiction” because these minors were particularly vulnerable and had been integrated into a system that “the Ministry of Immigration had to completely modify to adapt it to their needs.”
Sources from the Secretary of State for Immigration indicated that she had offered 817 places and there were still “about a hundred” to be filled. “These places can be filled while the Canary Islands government carries out the transfers and related procedures,” they noted. To date, in addition to the 50 units enabled in the Canary Islands, the Ministry has opened “several centers in different locations on the peninsula” and already has two sources in the Canary Islands. “It has a permanent nature linked to the individual circumstances of each minor, through which the degree of their integration on the islands will be assessed, as well as, if possible, their transition to adult life,” they explained.
The Secretary of State for Migration, Pilar Cancilla, points out that guardianship of minors remains the responsibility of the Canary Islands government. He stressed that “cooperation is necessary to ensure their full reception and to meet the needs of both boys and girls.” For their part, they stressed that they will continue to open the necessary reception resources on the peninsula.