Welcoming beyond slogans

We journalists had the opportunity to visit the Son Tous center this week thanks to the IMAS's willingness to open its doors (it's not yet occupied) and show where migrant children arriving in Mallorca will be housed to receive immediate care. I had to read the invitation twice, because these opportunities are rare, but always welcome.

Son Tous isn't the best place on Earth to be a child or teenager. But it's a space with a minimum of dignity for those who have risked their lives to reach Europe at an age when having to risk their lives should be prohibited. It still needs to be made more welcoming, more warm. But before, there was nothing but the difficulty of finding a minimally suitable place and the uproar from the far right about luxuries that migrants don't have. There have also been paradoxical situations, such as the refusals of some town councils with governing teams that are progressive in word only, not in deed.

Calling for children's rights is the easy part of this story. The difficult thing is to do something, to sacrifice a little, just a little, to offer other people a chance at a future. If things don't work out and someone doesn't find their future, at least let it not be our fault.

I still remember when the Director General of Immigration and Cooperation said to me, jokingly, "Do you want any children? I have plenty to spare!" He must have thought it was hilarious, although it was better to say sad. To emphasize that he wasn't racist, he told me he had gone to a water park with Sahrawi children—he went on about it for weeks—he must have thought it was heroic. I suppose he was waiting for praise so he could use these children for a photo op. The whole thing didn't smell right, no matter how much the top government official on migrant affairs keeps repeating that he isn't xenophobic.

That's why it was so welcome to find the doors of Son Tous open. Furthermore, I found that the institutional representatives were more concerned with explaining the situation than with getting their picture taken.

We cannot forget that the Son Tous juvenile detention center is next to the Temporary Foreigners' Detention Center (CATE), whose conditions are frankly in need of improvement. This, while we wait for humanism to prevail over self-interest.