March 2022. Just a month after the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, the Government opens the first state reception center raised to receive thousands of Ukrainians, located in the Madrid municipality of Pozuelo de Alarcón. His City Council, governed by the Popular Party, opens the arms at the arrival of refugees from the Russian invasion, calls solidarity and even promotes that the neighbors offer their own houses to the newcomers.
“We are talking about people who have to wander around the world. We will prevent anything ugly from passing and we have everything well tidy so that they can be where we can really welcome them and very well,” defended the then mayor of Pozuelo, Susana Pérez (PP), to announce a municipal initiative that intended to organize the help offered by neighbors willing to welcome Ukraine Fled from Russian invasion.
July 2025. After the Supreme Court ordered the central government to take care of a thousand asylum applicants arrived in the Canary Islands, the Ministry of Migration seeks to enable spaces to welcome them. He offered the Pozuelo de Alarcón reception center as one of the options to house part of these kids and thus comply with the sentence. “I refuse in resounding to bring a single lower immigrant to Pozuelo de Alarcón. We are going to do everything in our hand. We will not accept it in any way,” says the current mayor of the municipality, Paloma Tejero (PP). Two weeks later, your City Council requests an urban inspection of the center and, after its analysis, the Consistory orders its closure for lacking the necessary license for it.
Both Ukrainians and African minors that the Government has to host are applicants for international protection. Both have formalized protection requests because they flee from war or persecution in their countries of origin. The kids arrived in the Canary Islands referred to in the Supreme Judgment, those that could pass through the Pozuelo reception center, mostly from Mali, whose conflict, intensified last year, has caused waves of violence against civilians, as well as the expansion of the war towards new zanas of the country. They are children and, like Ukrainians, they flee from war.
Until now, the Consistory had not considered an urban inspection of the state reception center, as confirmed by the City Council of Pozuelo. “We were assumed that the Government has its roles in order,” municipal official sources respond to eldiario.es, which confirm that the reason for requesting it is due to the possible transfer – it was not even confirmed – of minor asylum seekers from the Canary Islands. “However, and given their intention to transfer 400 minors to the center we have verified that unfortunately they are in a totally illegal situation” because “they lack all licenses,” they add. The inspection was carried out this week and the City Council claims to have notified the closing order to the government this Wednesday.
Migrations denies having received the closing order from the center, although he confirms that the center has been subject to this week of an urban inspection. “We have collaborated contributing all the documentation and facilitating access to all rooms. We are calm,” official sources from the department led by Elma Saiz argue. The center of Pozuelo is a building owned by the Ministry of Social Security assigned to migrations in 2022 to address the arrival of refugees, especially Ukraine. So far more than 100,000 people have gone through their facilities and, according to the Ministry, “there has never been any problem with the City Council.”
At the moment, both ministerial sources and the NGO that manages it, ACCEM, confirm that the center is working normally. “Currently, almost 500 people are welcomed in the center of Pozuelo, the majority of Ukrainians, Latin American, women with very young children. We do not contemplate that the City Council and the Madrid PP want to leave them in the street at night,” they maintain from migrations.
Although it is the first time that the City Council goes to an urban inspection of the reception center, in September last year the mayor had begun to show her rejection of the center, just when the reception space also began to receive migrants and asylum seekers from other nationalities, given the fall of the arrival of Ukrainian refugees to Spain. When the mayor began to see groups of welcomes in the streets that, unlike the Ukrainians, did not have white skin or blue eyes. “The neighbors of nearby urbanizations (…) have contacted their City Council and their municipal police alarmed by observing that in recent weeks these people can be seen frequently wandering through the streets of our city,” Tejero wrote in a letter sent last year to the Government delegation in Madrid.
The mayor, who did not mention any incident between the people welcomed and the neighbors – only said they have seen them “wandering” – asked the government “a security reinforcement in the area.” He also criticized not being notified and finding out for the “repeated calls” of residents. The “alarm” described by the mayor was not appreciated then around the reception center. Some neighbors walked along the sidewalk in front without hardly paying attention to people who, very occasionally, entered and left the facilities.
After the offer of the Government of the Center of Pozuelo to the Canary Islands as one of the options to house the minor applicants of Asyl Okdiario: “The residents of Pozuelo and myself are terrified,” he said without mentioning any incident in his municipality with the people housed in the reception center. The mayor does not question at any time the presence of Ukrainians in her neighborhoods, but her alert came when she began to see groups of black people walking around the reception center. “Sub -Saharan buses appeared without prior notice, all uniformed with hoods and feathers, and generated terror,” he says in the interview. “We have achieved some coexistence, but it is a resource with which we are not comfortable,” he added.
The ultimatum of the Supreme
Last March, Supreme Court ordered the Central Government to take over the minors asylum applicants welcomed in the Canary Islands Protection Network. The Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the High Court adopted this positive precautionary measure that affects 1,221 unaccompanied minors who until now were part of the Archipelago Protection Network. It is, therefore, a different process from the Executive Plan for the mandatory distribution of foreign minors not accompanied by autonomous communities.
After months without complying with the sentence, the Supreme gave on June 5 an ultimatum to the central government, understanding that, from the precautionary request issued in March, it has not taken measures to expedite the situation of minors. Along these lines, the High Court demanded that, in the following 30 days, measures such as providing more personnel and means to the offices in charge or improving their collaboration with the Canary Islands will be taken. If not, warned the Supreme, the law contemplates the imposition of fines or bring to the criminal means to those responsible. It is, therefore, a different procedure
To comply with the order, the transfers of minor refugees from the Canary Islands to the Peninsula will begin within a maximum period of two weeks, according to the forecasts of the central government announced this Tuesday. At the last meeting between the State and the Autonomous Community, Migrations announced that it had already held meetings with the main entities that work with minors, with the aim of analyzing the resources and locations available in the rest of the autonomous communities. Regarding the exact location of the 1,200 places that will be created in the rest of the national territory, the Executive has asked for '' '' 'possible to avoid' 'possible unwanted situations'', they have assured from the Canarian government.
Among those “unwanted” situations are reactions such as that arising with the City of Pozuelo de Alarcón and the possible racist actions arising in the autonomous communities where they will be sent. Although the central government will take care of its reception and maintenance, education and health will be in charge of autonomies. Migration sources insist that the Pozuelo's reception center was just one of the possibilities they consider to receive these kids and, in any case, would need to be enabled to receive them, because it is currently not prepared to house unaccompanied minors. The Ministry intends to bet on prioritizing smaller reception spaces to favor greater inclusion in society and more personalized attention. Through the NGO includes, the portfolio directed by Elma Saiz is studying in a “individualized” way the case of each minor who has expressed willingness to move to the Peninsula, a key step to comply with the best interests of minors.
