The Government launches a shock plan to unblock the regularization of thousands of migrant minors in the Canary Islands | Spain

The Government launches a shock plan to unblock the regularization of thousands of migrant minors that are overcome in the Canary Islands. The initiative will concentrate on the foreigner office of the province of Las Palmas whose staff maintains hundreds of files accumulated in the drawers. The plan, which will encourage officials to work outside their working hours, starts after the country revealed that of the 5,800 foreign minors welcomed in the islands, Only 800 have a residence authorization. The responsibility of that figure, which demonstrates that the law that forces not to document unaccompanied foreign minors, falls to the regional protection service that must initiate the procedures; But also in the foreigner offices that, if the autonomous communities fail, are obliged to open those ex officio files at 90 days of their arrival.

The shock plan has been approved specifically for the Las Palmas Foreigner Office, where administration sources recognize that there are 986 pending processing files that the office personnel are not able to instruct with the necessary speed. In that mountain of cases, the majority (840) correspond to files of minors who have been in the islands for more than three months and that, not having been documented by the autonomous community, must be by the foreigners. It is your legal obligation.

It is not clear since when these files should have begun, but they are almost the same volume of folders that were already pending in March, if those who, already by those dates, had exceeded 90 days and those that would do it soon. « With this shock plan before the end of May the files will be resolved, » says a spokeswoman for the Canary Islands Government Delegation. The reinforcement does not contemplate the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where sources aware of the internal work of the office ensure that there is not that level of jam.

The task of documenting and regularizing minors, who usually arrive without a single role that identifies them, is not easy or fast. Simplifying the explanation of the process, the reception centers, which respond to the general direction of the Canary Islands, have to process the passports of the minors who arrive at their coasts. It is not usually simple, because Depending on the country (It is easier with Morocco than with Guinea or Mali), or they do not emit or take so long to do so that children cease to be children.

For cases where it cannot be documented through the country of origin, the administration should issue the registration card, an alternative document to the passport with which the residence authorization can be requested. But if all this process has not been completed in 90 days, it is the Foreigner Office that must take the reins, request to the Autonomous Community all the documentation available to and process the permits.

The Canary Islands government complains that it does not supply, while the Government Delegation reproaches that when it is prepared to process ex officio, the regional executive does not send him the documents he needs. « We have opened many files that have been paralyzed because we need an action of the Autonomous Community that has not occurred despite our requirements, » said the Government delegate last Thursday, Anselmo Pestana. Missing coordination, more flexibility on the part of the foreigners and greater control of the Prosecutor’s Office in this matter, as read in the reports of the Ombudsman, in which this concern appears recurringly since 2020.

The plan will begin this Monday and end on May 31. The officials who want to participate will receive a bonus for productivity for staying to work outside their schedule. Five euros will be paid for each file that they process, which will involve a disbursement of less than 5,000 euros. The ex officio process does not necessarily mean the resolution of the file, but it does require initiating the procedure and requesting the necessary documentation from the Autonomous Community. To this task, the one that will need the most work because it is the highest volume of cases, others will be added. According to internal data, in Las Palmas there are more than a hundred files that, once open, are still unresolved and more than twenty pending renewals.

The documentary limbo in which the minors of the Canary Islands are maintained should not be an impediment to relocate them in other regions, as expected from Julybut it will be an added problem for them. If it does not coordinate well and information is not exchanged, the destination communities and their government delegations will have to begin the zero procedures of all those who do not have their papers in order. In his statements to the media, the Government delegate, in fact, maintained that the ideal is that children who are relocated to other regions are previously documented in the Canary Islands. « I think it is one of the requirements, it seems logical that if they are here, this is where they are documented, » he said.