The Supreme Court has changed the interpretation of the law that has so far been made on the reception of minors fleeing alone to armed conflicts such as Mali and ask for international protection in Spain. In the car that issued last Wednesday In response to a resource presented by the Government of the Canary Islands, the Supreme Court, in particular about 1,200 minors on the run, which are in almost 6,000 which are overcrowded in the structures of the Canary Islands and establishes that within 10 days it must give them an answer. At least on those minors, who find themselves in a situation of special vulnerability, the government must take over, says the High Court, as it does with adults asking asylum in the Spanish territory. Until now, the central administration has considered that the condition of the minor was above the condition of the asylum seeker and, therefore, the protection was not within its competence, but of the autonomous communities.
The Supreme’s decision came after the government of the Canary Islands said that Within its reception services – discussed for months – 1,221 unaccompanied minors require international protection, counting both the 546 who have already asked him as another 675 waiting to formalize their application. Since the end of 2023 there has been a change in the profile of minors that only arrive in the Canary Islands and there has been an increase in young people who ran the risk of human rights violations in their country. The situation in that country is such that currently any Maliano adult who ask for protection in Spain obtains it, since the recognition rate for Mali citizens is 99%. The figures of the Ministry of the Interior – who manage these requests – explain the increase: in 2024 at least 400 unaccompanied minors requested asylum in Spain, when that figure had never reached the hundred.
The civic defender had already attracted attention in July 2024 The situation of those minor asylum seekers And he had asked the state to intervene, considering that he also had powers on them. In particular, Ángel Gabilondo claimed that it was “urgent” that the Ministry of Migration made available to the Canary Islands the reception resources necessary for these Maliani boys. In fact, he explicitly recommended to allow a specific attention to attention for unaccompanied asylum candidates – in which, among other things, they could formalize their requests – similar to the centers that were qualified for Ukrainian refugees at the beginning of the war. Migrations, on the other hand, consider that these minors, like all unaccompanied minors, had to be welcomed by the regional administrations.
For José Luis Rodríguez Candela, vice -president of the network, the car “puts points on the Ies” and clarifies that the reception of international protection candidates is the competence of the central government and, therefore, the minors who have requested protection must enter for them. In fact, even the European directive that regulates the question already states that those over the age of 16 can go to the centers of adult candidates if they were better there.
According to foreigners on the net, the appropriate path, in line with the civic defender, is to allow these differentiated centers that can serve them correctly, as has been done with the 200,000 refugees in Ukraine, with which this was organized in record time. Currently, the reception system for international protection candidates 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, who worked 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 against these 1,200 refugees who, in addition to being children, migrants and are alone, fleeing their countries so that their life was in danger. “The Supreme clarifies: given the inability to agree and in the face of the insolvency of the autonomous communities, which at least the general state administration deals with the protection of the most vulnerable among the most vulnerable”, says, taking into account the fact that asylum is a state competence.
Not all involved in the defense of the rights of migrants coincide in that reading on the supreme car. José Miguel Morales, director of the guests of Andalusia, claims that the criteria used by the high court are “questionable”, 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”, defends and therefore 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 minor refugees,” he says.
Morales says that the supreme decision leaves some questions. “What would happen when that minor turns 18? If that minor applicant were denied international protection, would it therefore be to go to the reception centers of the autonomous community?”
Elena Muñoz, legal director of the Spanish commission for refugee aid (Cear), states that, for the moment, the supreme car, as a precautionary measure, specifically affects only those 1,221 children who require children who are in the Canary Islands right now. He adds that, however, there may be a way: “We must evaluate the best interest of the minor on his 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.
