El Hierro is an island without a police station. Due to its population, barely 11,300 inhabitants, there is only a Civil Guard command.. A month ago, and with the growing arrival of immigrants, 10 police officers were assigned to carry out the tasks of identification and documentation of the 'undocumented' who disembark on the local jetties.. Now the island is overwhelmed and this weekend, for example, more than a thousand people have arrived in huge canoes, and those 10 agents ask for help, overwhelmed. In the last five months, more than 4,000 undocumented people have arrived as far as El Hierro alone..

“Suddenly you have nothing, but after a while 400 or 500 people can arrive at once and you only have 72 hours to do all the work. In El Hierro there are only 10 officers for this and they are saturated,” cries Marcos Santiago, the general secretary of the Unified Police Union (SUP) in the Canary Islands, who has raised his voice about the personnel problems when responding to this crisis. humanitarian. He emphasizes that officials are working on the order of “12 or 13 hours a day” to try to respond from the front line to the immigration emergency, while they observe how no more reinforcements arrive..

“There is no room for more people in El Hierro,” emphasizes Santiago, who highlights the difficult mission of these 10 agents deployed. “In 72 hours you have to identify the immigrant based on the information they give you, which is not easy, and send all the documentation to the court,” begins the police officer, who regrets that with this deadline and such a volume of arrivals to attend to it is practically impossible to carry out an investigation under conditions.

“Knowing where they come from and getting information is impossible. The procedures that need to be done are done and little else,” says Santiago.. By law, migrants who arrive irregularly can only be detained for 72 hours after entering national territory.. During this period, the Police must close their identification, a key aspect because with this information, among other things, subsequent asylum applications will be decided: if a person arrives in Spain from a conflict zone, they can request international protection instead of seeing How to begin the procedures for your deportation.

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“Between now and the end of the year we have impressive calms in the sea and we already know what awaits us. Even more so given the situation in African countries and, especially, in Morocco after the earthquake,” explains the police officer, who insists on the SUP's claim to the Ministry of the Interior..

He considers it essential that, at this point, more troops be transferred from other parts of Spain to the archipelago to be able to attend to the emergency.. “At the moment, all the troops that are responding to the problem are from the islands,” he emphasizes, and then recalls that in similar moments, such as four years ago, when the canoes drowned the Canary Islands, leaving images as shocking as that of a full dock in Arguineguín, “it was done like this”.

Migrant transfers

The transfers of agents between islands, however, are not the only ones that the situation requires.. As the reception facilities are completely overwhelmed, especially on small islands like El Hierro, the authorities are referring the 'undocumented' to other islands with more assistance resources to be able to face the crisis with dignity..

“There was no room for more people in the CATE and they have been taken to other resources on the islands. NGOs are also trying to distribute them, while the Canarian Government is in charge of the minors,” says the police officer, who insists on the call of help that, beyond the police, also extends among various sectors of the Canarian population. The island is overwhelmed once again.