Unaccompanied migrant children arriving on the islands in small boats will remain in the Canary Islands and will not be relocated to other regions of the country if the PP comes to power in Spain following the 29 November election, warned Ángel Víctor Torres, leader of the Socialist Party in the archipelago, on Saturday.
Ahead of the PSOE’s federal committee meeting, which will ratify the electoral lists ahead of the forthcoming general election, the leader of the Canary Islands‘ Socialist Party issued this warning, following the PP’s plans revealed by its national spokesperson, Borja Sémper, during his recent visit to Gran Canaria and Tenerife.
Sémper has stated that under a PP government, migrants arriving in Spain in small boats and canoes will be returned, rather than being distributed, as is currently permitted under the Immigration Act following «the milestone» of the reform of Article 35, which provides for such relocation across all the country’s autonomous communities in the event of a migration crisis, such as those occurring in several of its border regions.
Canary Islands: Torres warns against minors remaining in the islands
Regarding these plans by the PP, the Minister for Territorial Policy has stated that, following the recent crisis in Ceuta, the 3,000 unaccompanied migrant children who arrived in the autonomous city remain there; they have not been able to be returned to Morocco, unlike, he said, the more than 12,000 adults.
He has therefore warned that, once the PP repeals the reform of the Immigration Act, unaccompanied minors «will remain in the Canary Islands» or in whichever Spanish territories they arrive in.
The Canary Islands face a loss of 1.3 billion euros
The Socialist leader has also warned that an electoral victory for the PP, enabling it to form a government in Spain following 29 November, would mean an additional loss of 1.3 billion euros each year for the Canary Islands, as agreed by the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council, which approved the new regional funding framework.
For all these reasons, he emphasised that the PSOE is the only party that guarantees decentralisation for vulnerable territories such as the Canary Islands, Spain’s only outermost region.
Electoral alliance aims to win several Senate seats in the Canary Islands
Regarding the agreement reached by his party and the groups within the so-called Frente Amplio to stand for the Senate on 29 November, Torres has predicted that it will lead to victory for this coalition in the Canary Islands, enabling them to secure one senator on each island and two of the three seats up for election on the largest islands.
In his view, this electoral coalition will ensure that no vote «goes to waste or remains unrepresented».
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