Despite agreements signed by their PP and Vox governments to reject further arrivals, Castilla y León, Aragón and Extremadura are receiving unaccompanied foreign minors transferred from Ceuta. The transfers are being carried out under Article 5 of Spain’s immigration law, following requests from Ceuta’s administration. Information from EL PAÍS, the children now being moved entered the city before the mass crossing on 30 and 31 July.
The political refusal has not stopped the legal process. Madrid, Murcia and Galicia, all governed by the PP, are also receiving minors, while Castilla-La Mancha, governed by the PSOE, has accepted them too. Transfers continued through August and into September as Ceuta processed cases opened before the crisis overwhelmed the city.
The figures show the strain on the mechanism. Ceuta is assigned 29 ordinary places for the care of minors. Its administration now has around 2,200 minors registered in its system, while the central government estimates that another 1,000 remain on the streets. Before the mass arrival, the city was already caring for about 700.
The September schedule shows how the process is unfolding. Ceuta transferred one minor to Castilla y León on 14 September, another to Extremadura on 15 September and one to Aragón on 16 September. On 17 September, it sent up to 14 children and teenagers to Castilla-La Mancha.
More transfers were planned for the same month: one minor to Madrid and another to Murcia on 21 September, followed by four minors to Galicia on 24 September. These figures add to transfers made earlier in September and during August. The Xunta government and the Government of Castilla-La Mancha confirmed the arrivals, while Madrid said it had continued receiving case files from Ceuta and the Canary Islands concerning minors who arrived before the mass crossing. Territorial Policy Minister Ángel Víctor Torres said processing of the first individual case files began on 15 September. The Government estimated that relocating the minors could take roughly two months if resistance from the autonomous communities continued.
Congress changed the legal structure in March 2025. Spain’s redistribution mechanism is based on Royal Decree-Law 2/2025, approved by Congress, which provides the legal basis for moving unaccompanied minors between autonomous communities. In August, the Government approved a royal decree setting the number of places assigned to each autonomous community. When a territory exceeds its allocation by three times, it can request a migration contingency. The other communities must then accept the relocation of minors.
Ceuta is processing both groups: those who arrived before the crisis and those who crossed during the mass entry. Some transfers can also take place through voluntary bilateral agreements, as in the case of five girls relocated to Navarra last week. Those girls had arrived during the mass crossing.
PP leaders and Vox sources have privately acknowledged that they must comply with the law, even as their governments challenge the rules in court without success. Génova and Juan Jesús Vivas instead argue that everyone who arrived during the 30 and 31 July crossing should be returned to Morocco. Juan Manuel Moreno has taken a different position from the national party leadership, saying that the Government has the legal power to impose transfers to the mainland. On 16 September, Congress rejected a Vox initiative calling for an agreement to return minors to Morocco to be implemented, although the PP voted in favour.
The practical result is already clear: public agreements may reject new arrivals, but they do not prevent legally processed relocations from Ceuta. Article 5 has made the dispute an operational reality for regional governments. The unresolved question is whether the same procedure will apply to minors who arrived during the mass crossing. Official statements reported by Moncloa describe the transfers as urgent because Ceuta’s reception system is severely overloaded.
