The Ministry accuses Prohens of seeking political confrontation with the immigration contingency request.
The Executive is taking the State's refusal to grant this status to the National Court for not meeting the minimum requirements.
PalmThe Ministry of Youth and Children responded forcefully to the Government's request to declare an extraordinary migration emergency in the Balearic Islands, as it "does not meet the necessary requirements, which are objective and technical in nature," sources from the Ministry confirmed to ARA Baleares. With a standard reception capacity of 406 places, the islands would need to exceed 1,218 minors to activate this mechanism, and at the time of the request there were 694. According to the same sources, the figures "demonstrate that an institutional confrontation is being sought, because something is being demanded with full awareness."
In fact, the ministerial response is based on Royal Decree-Law 2/2025, which establishes the criteria by which a community can be declared under an extraordinary migration emergency. "The Balearic Islands clearly do not have this situation. The community was fully aware that the State cannot respond in any way other than to deny this possibility," added sources from the Ministry of Youth and Children, who consider the move "a political confrontation" with the Spanish government, told ARA Baleares.
The Ministry of Youth and Children has lamented on several occasions that the Balearic Islands and other communities governed by the PP have had a frontal confrontational attitude against the distribution of migrants, taking into account that "the three communities that have so far been able to declare this situation and therefore have been able to benefit from the measure of distributing children," stated sources from the aforementioned Ministry, who recall that "the day the Balearic Islands exceed the threshold set by the law, then they will also be able to benefit." "It is a technical criterion that allows us to decide who has the right and who does not to distribute their foster children," they point out.
The President of the Government, Marga Prohens, has harshly criticized the The Spanish government's decision this Tuesday in the plenary session of the Parliament, and asserted that "it is their responsibility to protect the borders and act against mafias that traffic in human lives." "We need the immigration contingency, because the rest is undignified, racist, and inhumane," the president criticized.
Appeal to the National Court
Thus, the Government has decided to file an appeal with the National Court against Madrid's refusal to declare the Archipelago under an extraordinary migratory emergency. The main argument is that the reception capacity of juvenile centers is overwhelmed and that the state's response constitutes an injustice, as it denies support to islands that, according to the Government, are experiencing increasing migratory pressure. Prohens denounces this as a case of "institutional racism," as the Balearic Islands are discriminated against compared to other territories such as the Canary Islands, Ceuta, or Melilla.
Ministerial sources have clarified that, under current legislation, the first transfers of migrant minors will be directed to the communities with the greatest free and ordinary capacity to receive children with dignity. "This means that the Balearic Islands will not be among the first destinations," they confirmed.
The Spanish government has criticized the fact that neither the Balearic Islands nor other regions critical of the child distribution system—which seeks to prevent entry points from having to accept all minors arriving illegally—have proposed alternative criteria. Madrid also lamented the islands' absence from the Sectoral Conference on Children and Adolescents, where €22 million in extraordinary credit was granted—also earmarked for the islands for the first time.
