The government of Ceuta is demanding that the Spanish state take over the management of unaccompanied migrant children, warning that the numbers are unmanageable.
Alberto Gaitán, the regional minister of the presidency who is responsible for the minors, said it was impossible for the city to handle 4,000 children. He urged the national government to take charge of the crisis.
Ceuta is a Spanish autonomous city on the north coast of Africa that shares a border with Morocco. Under current laws, the city's social services are responsible for the legal custody of unaccompanied minors who enter the territory.
Gaitán told the La Razón newspaper that the child protection system was built to care for vulnerable minors in Ceuta, and that it could not take responsibility for all of Morocco and Africa.
Overwhelmed protection system
The standard capacity for Ceuta's protection system is 29 minors. An extraordinary migratory contingency is declared when that number triples to 87. There are currently more than 1,600 registered minors in the city.
Local authorities believe the actual number of children in Ceuta is more than double the registered figure, leaving them in an uncontrolled situation.
Gaitán said the city had grown accustomed to tremendous over-occupancy, which led to the approval of a decree law to facilitate the transfer of minors to other Spanish regions. He added that the current scenario was much more severe and described it as an inadmissible situation.
The surge follows border crossings in July. Gaitán said the city had warned the national government as temporary shelters exceeded capacity before the arrivals on July 30 and 31.
He said the local government's authority was designed for reasonable migratory pressure, not what he described as an invasion, reiterating that he could not manage 4,000 minors.
Legal options explored
Juan Jesús Vivas, the president of Ceuta, and his team have spent the past week exploring whether they can legally return the authority for social services to the state. Doing so would require modifying Ceuta's Statute of Autonomy.
The regional government has asked the central government to assume guardianship of the minors, specifically those who arrived during the recent border breaches. The proposal was sent to Spain's Ministry of Youth and Children.
Gaitán said they had informed the ministry that the situation was anomalous and that the city could not take charge. He said that while the initial response was silence, the ministry is now analyzing the situation.
He expressed frustration at the lack of solutions, noting that expected returns have not happened, though authorities have managed to clear minors out of local schools to ease the immediate pressure.
Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish prime minister, recently stated there were 5,000 illegal immigrants remaining in Ceuta. Local authorities disputed that figure, arguing that nobody believes it and that the number of minors alone approaches 5,000.
