The “ordinary capacity” of Ceuta to accommodate unaccompanied foreign minors is 27 places. If an “extraordinary migratory contingency situation” is declared, which – according to sources from the Ministry of Youth and Childhood – had been ongoing since August 2025, that availability must be expanded, but up to a limit, set by law, of 90 places.
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After the influx of at least 72,000 people who swam across the maritime border with Morocco a week ago, the government of the autonomous city estimates that it has under its care 1,200 children and young people without family, “2,600%” above its capacity, according to the president, the popularJuan Jesús Vivas, who warned: “The situation is absolutely unsustainable”.
However, Vox has disrupted the PP’s strategy of trying to focus on the fact that the government of Pedro Sánchez “has not assumed any responsibility for everything that has happened”, not even in the diligence in preparing the register of minors in Ceuta to verify if they really are minors and, therefore, should be accommodated even if they arrived irregularly, which they consider “crucial”. Until this procedure is carried out, the 15-day period for their transfer to less strained communities does not begin, a distribution that has been mandatory since the approval of the Foreigners Law reform at the beginning of last year.
The party of Alberto Núñez Feijóo had reaffirmed this Wednesday that it “will comply with the law”, that is, it did not rule out contributing from its autonomous communities to alleviate the situation in the autonomous city and thus, at the same time, avoided clashing with the PSOE, which through Carlos Cuerpo had hinted: “We are all capable of visualizing why the PP is sending this type of messages [to obstruct the distribution]. A year and a half ago governments broke with Vox precisely for this reason”.
Against the measured approach of Génova, hours later, from Andalusia the formation of Santiago Abascal confronted directly with Sánchez’s first vice president and claimed its status as an indispensable partner of the PP in the region, marking the way for Juanma Moreno and the whole party. The second vice president of the Junta with Vox, Manuel Gavira, did not even wait for Moncloa to raise the issue to reject any intention that Andalusia could accommodate a single minor remaining in the autonomous city after the massive assault. It happens that it is the only autonomous community, among the four with right-wing coalitions, where the PP retains the competencies over minors.
However, through his profile on the social network X, Gavira announced this Wednesday that “Andalusia, like the rest of the governments where Vox is present, will oppose any distribution of unaccompanied minors proposed by the Sánchez government”. “That is what we agreed,” he emphasized invoking the agreement with Moreno just a month ago, which contemplates in its point number 12 the “frontal rejection of the central government’s migration policy” and adds that the Junta “will oppose by all means any attempt to distribute illegal immigrants, whether adults or minors”.
The same wording had been included earlier, also at Vox’s instigation, in the pacts with the Populars in Extremadura, Aragon, and Castile and León, where it also holds immigration competencies. The top representatives of the party in the three regions have also expressed themselves in the same line as their Andalusian colleague, anticipating that they will oppose “by land, sea, and air” the distribution.
The PP leadership did not want to confront Abascal’s group this Wednesday, but they did emphasize that their communities “will always comply with the law”, adding: “What cannot be accepted are the consequences of the central government’s irresponsibility in this crisis nor its dereliction of duties, which compromise everyone’s security”. The party’s Deputy Secretary for Sectoral Coordination, Alma Ezcurra, demanded that the distribution of children and young people be “fair, well-resourced, and planned”.
This contained message from Génova contrasts with that of Vox. “What happened in Ceuta is an invasion and those who crossed the border illegally should be returned to Morocco. And, if they are minors, with their parents,” stressed the party leader in Andalusia. In this community, his party assumed, through the Institute of Legal Medicine, the responsibility for the reports that determine the age of immigrants.
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Meanwhile, the Andalusian government officially remains silent and does not comment on a possible distribution of unaccompanied minors, although it is the PP, through the Ministry of Social Services, Family and Equality, that holds the competencies. The popular part of the Andalusian government tries to avoid confrontation with its partners, although privately they emphasize that “the law will be complied with”.
Breakup in 2024
For Vox, what matters more is what was signed in the coalition pacts. In 2024, Abascal broke the five governments he then had with the PP – Valencian Community, Castile and León, Region of Murcia, Aragon, and Extremadura – considering it “unacceptable” that they accepted the distribution of immigrant children and young people. The pacts that supported those coalitions did not even include specific mentions in this regard, as they have been incorporated into the four signed this year.
The debate now placed in public opinion by Abascal’s formation ends up benefiting the government, which a week after the influx had not been able to explain what failed for its Intelligence services not to anticipate the massive arrival of such a number of people to Ceuta and which this Tuesday, through Cuerpo, tried to relocate the crisis in the controversy over the distribution, exactly where it was placed after Vox’s offensive.
The mandatory distribution of minors contemplated by the Foreigners Law is so far “being applied”, said the president of Ceuta. He explained that some communities “appeal the transfer resolutions”, but that his government has “the levers in defense of the general interest”. The problem, he pointed out, is the very volume of arrivals, which his administration estimates at about 80,000 – equivalent to the entire population of the city – which “overwhelms it”: “There is no law that withstands what an influx means”.
Other autonomous communities governed by the PP without Vox have not opposed the distribution outright, but have already alleged difficulties. Madrid claims that their capacity is “at the limit”; the Valencian Community, that it is “collapsed”; Murcia has resources “totally saturated and maximum tension”; and Galicia assumes that “they will have to be attended to”, but demands that it be accompanied by “the necessary means”.
In the Basque Country, where the PNV governs with the PSOE, they warn that they already accommodate “more” than they should and demand to “exhaust administrative channels” so that children return to their families in their countries of origin.
And from the Generalitat of Catalonia – headed by the also socialist Salvador Illa – they limited themselves to giving “full support to the Moncloa government” and the measures adopted. However, they currently have under their care 6,354 minors under 21 years old, almost triple the ordinary capacity, which is the maximum. Additionally, Junts threatens Sánchez with not giving him “a single vote” if he does not exclude Catalonia from the distribution.
*With information from Cristina Rubio, Ruth Díaz, Daniel G.-Fontecha, David Vigario, and Juan B. Cañellas
