The Supreme Change the interpretation about the reception of minor refugees | Spain

The Supreme Court has changed the interpretation of the law that has so far been made about the reception of minors fleeing alone of armed conflicts such as Mali’s and ask for international protection in Spain. In the car he issued last Wednesday In response to a resource filed by the Canary Islands government, the Supreme Court especially about at least 1,200 minors fleeing war that are within the almost 6,000 that are overcrowded in the Canary Islands facilities and establishes that within 10 days it has to give them an answer. At least about those minors, who are in a situation of special vulnerability, the government must take over, says the high court, as it does with adults who ask for asylum in Spanish territory. Until now, the Central Administration considered that above the condition of asylum seeker was the condition of minor and, therefore, the guardianship was not within its competence, but of the autonomous communities.

The decision of the Supreme is arrived after the Canary Islands government claimed that Within its reception services – discussed for months – 1,221 unaccompanied minors require international protection, counting both the 546 who have already asked for it as another 675 that are pending to formalize their application. Since the end of 2023 there has been a change in the profile of minors who arrive in the Canary Islands alone and there has been an increase in young people who in their country ran the risk of human rights violations. The situation in that country is such that currently any Malian adult who asks for protection in Spain obtains it, since the recognition rate for Mali nationals is 99%. The figures of the Ministry of Interior – which manages these requests – account for the increase: in 2024 at least 400 unaccompanied minors requested asylum in Spain, when that figure had never reached the hundred.

The Ombudsman had already caught attention in July 2024 about The situation of those minors asylum seekers And he had asked the State to intervene, considering that he also had powers on them. Specifically, Ángel Gabilondo argued that it was « urgent » that the Ministry of Migration made available to the Canary Islands the necessary reception resources for these Malian boys. In fact, he explicitly recommended to enable a specific center for attention for unaccompanied asylum applicants – in which, among other things, they could formalize their requests – similar to the centers that were enabled for Ukrainian refugees when the war began. Migrations, on the other hand, consider that these minors, like all unaccompanied minors, had to be welcomed by regional administrations.

For José Luis Rodríguez Candela, vice president of Network, the car « puts the points on the IES » and makes it clear that the reception of international protection applicants is the competence of the central government and, therefore, minors who have requested that protection must enter centers for them. In fact, even the European directive that regulates the issue already states that those over 16 can go to the centers of adult applicants if they were better there.

According to foreigners in network, the appropriate route, in line with the Ombudsman, is to enable these differentiated centers that can serve them properly, as was done with the 200,000 refugees in Ukraine, with which this was organized in record time. Currently, the reception system for international protection applicants has hosted 32,189 people, including 8,594 minors who are there with their families.

That same perspective is defended by Lourdes Reyzábal, founder and president of the Raíces Foundation, which has been working with minors. For her, the car highlights the failures of the State both in the protection of childhood and in the asylum system. And, in particular, the failures towards these 1,200 refugees that in addition to being children, migrants and are alone, fleeing their countries because their life was in danger. « The supreme makes it clear: given the inability to agree and in the face of the insolvency of the Autonomous Communities, that at least the General State Administration takes care of the protection of the most vulnerable among the most vulnerable, » he says, taking into account that asylum is a state competence.

Not all involved in the defense of the rights of migrants coincide in that reading about the supreme car. José Miguel Morales, director of Andalusia hosts, argues that the criteria used by the High Court is “debatable”, because so far what has prevailed is the condition of the minor before his documentary situation in the country he reaches. « They are lower before migrants, » he defends, and therefore, they must be protected by the autonomous community in which they are, since unaccompanied minors are an autonomous competition. « We cannot create a parallel system for minors refugees, » he says.

Morales states that the Supreme decision leaves some questions. « What would happen when that minor turns 18? If that minor applicant is denied international protection, would there be then going to the reception centers of the Autonomous Community? »

Elena Muñoz, legal director of the Spanish Commission for Refugee Aid (CEAR), affirms that, for the moment, the Supreme Auto, as a precautionary measure, only specifically affects those 1,221 children’s requesting children who are in the Canary Islands right now. He adds that, however, there could be one way: « We must assess the best interest of the minor about her legal situation; but in the Canary Islands they are in overcrowding, in overene, we must analyze what would be the best for them, » he concludes.