The Community of Madrid has not received any funding from the 40 million euros allocated by the central government to host 11,174 unaccompanied minors present in the country, registered as of September 30 by the country's interior ministry. The government said its records show that no unaccompanied minors arrived in the region in 2017.
However, sources in Madrid said they have accommodated more than 1,000 unaccompanied minors since the beginning of 2018, double the number from the same period in 2017.
Health ministry funding allocation
The Spanish Health Ministry created an initiative to approve a supplementary aid fund for regions that received additional unaccompanied minors in subsequent migrant waves since the beginning of the year. Since September, the ministry has been working on funding allocation, ahead of the approval of a government decree by the end of October. However, three of the regions that host the highest number of underage migrants following Andalusia - Madrid, Catalonia and Murcia - don't recognise the figures in the registry of foreign minors, managed by the General Commission for Foreigners and Borders.
The registry is the basis for the allocation of funding. Spanish daily El Pais reported that the draft measure lists Madrid as hosting 407 minors, 71 less than December 2017, which is why it is not receiving any additional funding. The communities that will receive the most funding are Andalusia, with 5,621 unaccompanied minors; Melilla (1,090); Catalonia (1,074); the Basque Country (970); and the Valencian Community (564).
Madrid challenges official figures
The Social Policies Councillorship in the region of Madrid, which has been at the centre of criticism for weeks over management of an overcrowded refugee centre for minors in Hortaleza, said it is currently accommodating more than 846 minors.
It said that is double the number recorded in the official government registry. Catalonia, the region with the third-highest number of minor migrants, is also being penalised by the official registry figures. The registry shows that the region went from 805 unaccompanied minors in December 2017 to 1,074 in September 2018, which is why it is only receiving aid corresponding to an increase of 269 minor migrants.
Health ministry sources cited by the Spanish media said that they are "trying to clarify" the situation of funding distribution. They said the interior ministry's registry for unaccompanied minor migrants is based on data provided by the regional governments "with a homogeneous and agreed-upon system". They also said the the emergency of migrant arrivals is putting the functioning of the state of autonomies to the test. Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska called on the regions for "solidarity and shared responsibility."