Immigrant Minors' Placement Begins This Week

The plan is to spread reception across the whole country, easing pressure on border areas

The allocation of migrant children who have arrived in the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla to the rest of Spain’s autonomous communities will start this week. The government is set to approve a decree that will specify the number of reception places each region must provide.

In the same week, a migration contingency status will be approved for territories whose resource use has tripled their normal reception capacity—such as the Canary Islands and Ceuta. This measure will allow children currently cared for in those areas to be transferred to other communities.

These steps finalize a mechanism demanded by the Canary Islands: a mandatory redistribution among autonomous regions. The process was delayed for months by opposition from the PP, but after an agreement with Junts, it was incorporated into a reform of the Foreigners’ Law approved by the executive in March and ratified by the Congress in April.

• Approximately 3,000 migrant minors currently in places like the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla will be reassigned to other regions over the next year.
• Starting in September, all unaccompanied foreign minors arriving in areas with strained resources must be transferred to other autonomous communities within 15 days.

The initiative aims to balance the burden of reception nationwide and relieve the pressure on Spain’s border zones.