The Ombudsman (in office), Francisco Fernández Marugán, has appeared this Tuesday in the Senate Palace to present the actions taken by the Institution he heads on the arrival of migrants to the Canary Islands in 2020 and in the first months of 2021.
Last March, the Ombudsman published a monographic report on migration in the Canary Islands, which was presented today before the Joint Committee on relations with the Ombudsman. In addition to this study, Fernández Marugán explained the main conclusions of the latest visits made by technicians of the Ombudsman during the week of April 11 to 17.
Unaccompanied foreign minors
The situation of unaccompanied foreign minors is of particular concern to the Ombudsman and he made this clear during his intervention. According to data provided by the Canary Islands child protection agency, between 2020 and the first months of 2021, 2,776 unaccompanied foreign minors have arrived, of which 2,084 are pending age determination checks.
Fernández Marugán has repeated that “it is not reasonable for the Canary Islands child protection services to take on the challenge of their reception alone”. In this sense, he has called for “the collaboration and solidarity of the rest of the autonomous communities” and has asked the Ministry of Social Rights and Agenda 2030 to assume a driving role “to urgently agree on the solidarity allocation of these minors throughout the territory”.
Moreover, the Ombudsman considers it necessary for the Public Prosecutor’s Office to introduce reforms to the age determination procedure so that it can be carried out as quickly as possible.
While this is happening, the general administration of the State must urgently allocate funds for the immediate care of these minors.
He also pointed out that we must not forget that these are young people who have left “their country and their families to forge a better future among us through hard work and effort”. For this reason, he advocated “working hard” to achieve their integration and rejecting those who seek their “exclusion”.
Restrictions on free movement
During his appearance, he has also insisted that restrictions to the free movement of migrants located in the Canary Islands should be ended, using arguments such as, that these limitations are necessary for migratory control and to avoid the call effect. In this line, he recalled that “the Supreme Court and several resolutions of the Canary Islands courts have ordered the Ministry of the Interior to cease this practice”.
The Ombudsman has pointed out that in the reception centers coexist people with different administrative situations. On the one hand, there are Moroccan nationals, most of whom have passports and have orders to be returned to their country which, at this time, as repatriation flights to Morocco have been cancelled, are not enforceable. On the other hand, there are people from sub-Saharan countries who either cannot be returned to their places of origin or cannot be returned at this time, as is the case with Senegal.
Fernández Marugán explained that “in both cases, waiting a long time without receiving information about their future means that many do not wish to remain in these centers”. In addition, he stated that “we must take into account that many of these people have family members already settled in the peninsula and in other European countries, with whom they would like to be reunited”.
The Ombudsman considers that the Ministry of the Interior should allow their mobility to the peninsula under the terms established by law and according to the criteria established by the courts.
Comparative data
On several occasions during his appearance, Fernández Marugán repeated that, given the geographical position of Spain, migration from African countries is a reality that “has existed, exists and will exist”. What varies depending on the time of year, is the profile of the people who arrive, he pointed out.
As he explained, the first months of 2021 are leaving a dismal balance of deaths and disappearances of boats and people at sea. The latest of these tragedies was experienced this very Monday, when an Air Rescue Service plane found 17 migrants dead in a boat adrift almost 500 kilometers southwest of the island of El Hierro. “One more sign of the enormous risks run by people trying to reach the Canary Islands from the African coasts”, lamented the Ombudsman.
Fernández Marugán also recalled the death of the Malian girl Eléne, who could not survive the crossing and whose mother buried her in the Canary Islands a few days ago. In addition, he pointed out that many of those who manage to reach the coast have a significant deterioration of health.
On the other hand, regarding the origin, he has exposed that during 2020 more than half of the 23,023 people who arrived at the Canary coasts were of Moroccan origin, something that is not happening in the first months of 2021, in which most of the 3,980 people who have reached these coasts come from sub-Saharan countries and especially from Senegal.
Furthermore, if in 2020 the majority of arrivals were men, in 2021 the number of women and minors has increased. In the Ombudsman’s opinion, the growing arrival of women and minors “represents a new challenge for a reception system designed for a fundamentally male migration, without major health problems and with a profile of economic migrants”.
Fernández Marugán has denounced that these women and children are subjected to the same police procedure as any other arrival. In this sense, he has assured that “it is not humane to keep mothers with children, who have just been rescued at sea in terrible conditions, detained for up to 72 hours”.
The Ombudsman has recognized the improvements that the National Police is carrying out to adapt its facilities, but considers that these women and their children upon arrival should be directed to humanitarian shelters, and once they have received this initial assistance, to
carry out all the necessary police procedures.
Regarding the identification of vulnerable people, Fernández Marugán denounced the contradiction posed by the European Union on this issue. “On the one hand, it asks us to have adequate systems for the identification of vulnerable groups in order to treat them with dignity. Nothing to object to. But on the other hand, it requires us to close and protect our borders, which are also Europe’s borders, and to prevent the mobility of these people on its territory. This is not possible at the same time”, he pointed out.
For the Ombudsman, the priority is to maximize attention to these vulnerable groups, reviewing the protocols applied to them. In this sense, he regretted that in the inspections carried out by the Ombudsman, many minors have been identified in adult centers “due to the application of inadequate protocols, which must be reformed,” he said. In his opinion, it is also essential to improve information and facilitate the processing of asylum applications, which now suffer a delay of more than a year.
Visits to centers and facilities
Fernández Marugán stated that, in view of the increase in the number of arrivals to thecoasts of the Canary Islands, personnel from the Ombudsman’s Office, accompanied by interpreters of different languages, went to the archipelago to carry out an exhaustive supervision of the reception, detention and reception facilities for foreigners. First in November and very recently, in April.
The Ombudsman first summarized the actions carried out in November, where facilities were inspected in Gran Canaria, Tenerife, La Palma, El Hierro, Fuerteventura and Lanzarote.
Fernández Marugán pointed out that the main shortcomings identified during these visits, which are detailed in the monograph, were the lack of adequate facilities and the absence of agile and effective identification protocols for the referral of vulnerable people.
From April the 11th to the 17th, 14 centers in Gran Canaria, Fuerteventura, El Hierro and Tenerife were examined. On this occasion, two centers for the internment of foreigners were visited; two centers for the protection of minors; three shared management centers where people arriving by boat are held in quarantine; a police detention center; the port of Arguineguín and six centers set up for the reception of migrants within the framework of the Canary Islands Plan.
In November, the Canary Plan drawn up by the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration to allocate the people who were arriving was a project; in April it has been possible to see that it is starting to become a reality, although not without problems. “We can say that we have started the way to solve the management of arrivals”, he stressed.
The Ombudsman has emphasized the admirable response of the Canary Islands’ civil society to help people who find themselves outside the official reception system.
Final reflection
The Ombudsman has pointed out that “it is foreseeable that throughout the summer thearrivals of young people without a future will increase, aiming at what they consider to be the best possible world, even if it is a camp in the Canary Islands”. With this premise, he has made an appeal so that situations like the one experienced in 2020 at the Arguineguín pier do not happen again. “We must be prepared to provide an adequate solution to this phenomenon that respects the dignity of these people and their rights,” he has claimed.
Finally, he recalled the study “The contribution of immigration to the Spanish economy” prepared by the Institution in 2019 and assured that “only ignorance can deny the convenience of immigration for our country”. Thus, he has opted for procedures that allow a legal and organized arrival of these people and for this, he has asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to strengthen the consular network. “What has been happening in the Canary Islands is not the right path, neither for the people who come nor for us”.
Fernández Marugán concluded his speech by assuring that “now children no longer come from Paris, they come from Africa”.
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