Migration focuses the debate at the beginning of the political course in Spain, and the Government of the Canary Islands is considering going to court in the face of migratory pressure. The archipelago closes the last week of August with more than 2,000 arrivals.
The Migration breaks records again in Spainafter a weekend in which arrivals to the Canary Islands continue: almost 600 people on Saturday and more than 2,000 in the last week of August. Among migrants, unaccompanied minors continue to arrive. The archipelago, at 160% of its capacityhas more than 5,000 children under its guardianship.
Given this situation, the political course begins in Spain with the focus on the debate on irregular migration, especially after the three day tour of the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, for West Africa.
From his last stop on the trip, Senegal, the president defended an orderly, “necessary and positive” migration, against the “hell” of irregular migrationwhich causes “extreme situations of exploitation” and “a very obvious risk of death.”
Some statements that tried to alleviate the criticism of the PP, the opposition party, to the immigration policies of the Government. One of the points of friction between the two forces revolves around the migrant returns.
Sánchez criticized the PP for embracing “the most xenophobic theses of the extreme right” when defending mass deportations such as those in Italy and Germany. For his part, the opposition reproached him for defending the same thing on his tour of West Africa, advocating returns “within the law” to give a “clear and forceful message to the mafias and those who put themselves in their hands.”
The Canary Islands debate whether to take the Government to Court
Fernando Clavijo, the president of the Canary Islands, has announced that the Governing Council of the Community will debate whether to take the central government to court due to the migratory pressure that the islands suffer. The objective is to settle responsibilities regarding the reception of unaccompanied migrant minors.
While the political brawl continues, thousands of people continue embarking on the Atlantic route to try to reach the Spanish coasts. A route that traditionally ended in Lanzarote or Gran Canaria, but that has changed in the last two years.
El Hierro, an island of about 11,800 inhabitants, is the new destination for the cayucos that set sail from the coasts of Gambia, Senegal or Mauritania. In 2023, received more than 14,000 irregular immigrants. Only in the three days that Sánchez’s tour lasted, a total of 1,356 people landed on the beaches of El Hierro. This figure rises to more than 5,000 so far this year.
The Canary Islands as a whole received nearly 40,000 migrants irregular last year, surpassing the 31,678 arrivals of the so-called ‘cayuco crisis’ 2006. A record that could be broken again in 2024.
