The Balearic Government will begin to perform dental tests on unaccompanied immigrants arriving to the territory to determine if they are minors. The proposal has been raised by Vox and has the support of the president of the Government, Marga Prohens, who has said: “We have to be completely sure that the minors we welcome are minors”. As reported by the Conselleria de Salut, a double test will be performed on unaccompanied immigrants. On the one hand, the carpal (wrist) X-ray will continue to be done, but this will not be enough since “they have a margin of error of five years”. To complement this, Vox has called for the incorporation of a panoramic dental x-ray (also known as orthopantomography), which shows a broad and detailed view of the patient’s mouth, including the teeth, jaws, jaw, maxillary sinuses and other surrounding structures. In this regard, Prohens has advanced that the Conselleria de Salut will automatically make the dental tests available to the Prosecutor’s Office to determine the age of the immigrants.“I do not want to be responsible for mixing migrant minors with adults,” she warned in the plenary session of the Parliament on Tuesday. This political agreement between the PP and Vox in the Balearic Islands has aroused strong criticism from the opposition. On the one hand, Més per Mallorca has assured that the autonomic Executive does not have competences to make them and has considered it as a “frontal attack to human dignity”. On the other hand, from the PSIB-PSOE, they have pointed out that “it is a horror that we have to think about this when we talk about minors”.
Dental evidence will depend on the Prosecutor’s Office
The Central Government Delegation in the Balearic Islands has issued a statement on this issue, in which it has indicated that “the application of medical techniques to determine the minority of age of a migrant person is a procedure that depends on the instruction of the Public Prosecutor and is reserved solely and exclusively for those cases in which it is necessary to certify this aspect and there is no other documentary way”. “The protocol contemplates minimally invasive and proportionate tests, which must respect the integrity of the person, as established by the regulations on the legal protection of minors. In addition, in no case may the realization of the same be imposed against the will of the minor”, they have clarified. The delegate of the central government in the Balearic Islands, Alfonso Rodríguez, has demanded that “unaccompanied minors should no longer be used to ensure or justify political support for the budgets”, in reference to the fact that Vox has made the implementation of this measure a condition of its support for the CAIB budgets for 2025. “Placing these people at the center of the political debate puts their dignity at risk, especially when they are people with a vulnerable social profile, who require policies and actions of solidarity from the public authorities”, he said.
