The Autonomous City of Melilla has urged the central Government to put into operation in its territory the same procedures that are being applied in Ceuta in order to reduce the number of unaccompanied foreign minors under guardianship, through their return to Morocco.
At this time, Melilla is taking charge of about 330 migrant minors, a figure that practically multiplies by four its capacity considered adequate for reception, set at 84 places.
The third vice president of the Melilla executive, Daniel Ventura (PP), has denounced the different treatment between the two autonomous cities and has questioned why the model that, he said, has allowed the repatriation of around 300 Moroccan minors in Ceuta is not replicated in Melilla.
"Why is the same mechanism not used as in Ceuta? Use it here too. We prepare the repatriation reports, and in this case the councillor for Social Policies signs them every day. We are talking about many, and use those repatriation reports with the same model," he demanded.
Ventura answered in this way the Government delegate in Melilla and general secretary of the PSOE in the city, Sabrina Moh, who had asked the regional executive to request the transfer of migrant minors to the mainland, taking advantage of the instruments provided for in the state regulations to deal with situations of extraordinary migration contingency.
The third vice president has rejected this option by considering that sending the minors to other autonomous communities would not address the structural problem and, in addition, could encourage new arrivals. "What she intends is for us to speed up everything we can to make that sending of minors to the rest of our national territory, with the very negative part that that has, because it also encourages the possibility that minors can keep arriving along the same lines," he argued.
Ventura has recalled that repatriations cannot be carried out collectively, since regulations require analyzing the situation of each minor case by case and processing a specific report. "Repatriations cannot be done en masse because the law says it has to be done individually. There has to be a report for each of the minors, which is what is being done and what has always been being done," he explained.
With 330 minors cared for in front of an optimal capacity of 84 places, the Government of Melilla demands "a solution that allows alleviating care pressure" and preventing the city from continuing to bear "an disproportionate burden".