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In an article first published on The Conversation, KELSEY NORMAN AND NICHOLAS R MICINSKI argue last week\u2019s mass incursion into Ceuta was not merely a result of misinformation or\u00a0people looking for safety in Europe, but a reflection of disagreements and lack of coordinated action in Brussels\u2026<\/p>\n
Via The Conversation US<\/p>\n
Europe is again embroiled in a contentious debate about immigration.<\/p>\n
On 4th August, 2026, European interior ministers met for an EU-wide crisis meeting on borders. This followed days of accusations, recriminations and in-fighting among EU member states over an incident in which approximately 70,000 people crossed<\/a> from Morocco to the small Spanish enclave of Ceuta on the North African coast.<\/p>\n Many swam several miles in the Mediterranean to avoid the heavily fortified border fence \u2013 leaving 88 people drowned in just 48 hours. While Spanish police escorted most of the individuals back to Morocco with the help of Moroccan authorities, the European far right quickly latched on<\/a> to the episode as fodder to further fuel its anti-migrant policies.<\/p>\n \u201c[T]he latest episode was not merely a result of misinformation or vast numbers of people looking for safety in Europe, but a reflection of disagreements and lack of coordinated action in Brussels.\u201d<\/p>\n While this is not the first time thousands of migrants have crossed into Ceuta, the moment has sparked a new diplomatic crisis in the European Union, hearkening back to the 2015 \u201ccrisis<\/a>\u201d when migration likewise threatened to destabilise the bloc. As in the earlier case, the latest episode was not merely a result of misinformation or vast numbers of people looking for safety<\/a> in Europe, but a reflection of disagreements and lack of coordinated action in Brussels.<\/p>\n What explains last week\u2019s sudden rise in migration Under normal circumstances, several thousand migrants cross without documents to the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla each year. From January to April 2026, 2,582 people<\/a> crossed to Ceuta and roughly 1,000 people claimed asylum<\/a>.<\/p>\n Observers have offered various theories as to why that number spiked so high last week.<\/p>\n Pedro S\u00e1nchez, the Spanish prime minister, blamed trafficking groups<\/a> that spread rumors online about a recent Supreme Court decision that Spain could not return people if they arrived by sea. When journalists interviewed migrants, many said that social media posts sparked<\/a> hope that they could swim to Ceuta and eventually travel to Europe for work and a better life.<\/p>\n The Spanish court decision was wrestling with a difficult legal question: How and when can migrants apply for asylum when they arrive at Spain\u2019s borders? This echoes debates addressed by the US Supreme Court in June<\/a> when it supported the Trump administration\u2019s pushbacks at the southern US border, arguing that migrants could not apply for asylum because they had not technically crossed into US territory. Of course, they were not in the US because the border guards had pushed them back.<\/p>\n The Spanish decision was more narrow<\/a>: It agreed that migrants cannot be pushed back if they arrive by sea because there were no physical elements to the maritime border. If the government installed a floating wall extending Ceuta\u2019s border fence into the sea, which it has now done<\/a>, then pushbacks would be legal.<\/p>\n Nevertheless, Spanish police have escorted nearly all migrants back to Morocco, with only some<\/a> individuals from non-Moroccan nationalities allowed to apply for asylum and some unaccompanied Moroccan minors allowed to remain.<\/p>\n \tWe rely on our readers to fund Sight’s work – become a financial supporter today!<\/p>\n Morocco\u2019s interests Beginning in the 1990s and increasingly throughout the 2000s, Spain took steps<\/a> to strengthen the border fortifications between the enclaves and Morocco, primarily out of fear that migrants from sub-Saharan Africa would cross into Melilla or Ceuta en route to mainland Europe.<\/p>\n Morocco has largely cooperated<\/a> with the EU to block migration in exchange for large financial inducements and diplomatic benefits, though that relationship briefly faltered in 2021 over issues related to the Moroccan-occupied territory of Western Sahara.<\/p>\n In retaliation over Spain\u2019s decision that year to permit medical treatment for the leader of Western Sahara\u2019s Polisario Front, a banned pro-independence group, Moroccan border guards allowed approximately 12,000 people to cross into Ceuta over two days. The dispute was overcome only after S\u00e1nchez made overtures to Morocco<\/a>, acknowledging its rule over the territory.<\/p>\n This time around, it is similarly unlikely that tens of thousands of individuals would have been able to cross without the complicity of Moroccan border guards. That led some observers to speculate<\/a> that the episode was once again Moroccan retaliation toward Spanish positioning on the issue of Western Sahara. The Spanish Prime Minister visited<\/a> Algeria, the primary political and financial backer of the Polisario Front, days before the Ceuta episode.<\/p>\n The post-2015 paradigm Some countries suspended the Schengen zone, which allows for the internal free movement of goods and people across 29 European countries, and restarted border checks. The European Council adopted a mandatory quota to share the refugee burden more equitably across all member states, but it fell apart in acrimony and finger-pointing when Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic refused to participate.<\/p>\n For years, legislation to reform EU migration policy stalled in Brussels, leaving the EU with one primary policy tool: migration management aid. The EU poured nearly $US6 billion (more than \u20ac5 billion) in foreign aid to countries including Morocco to address the \u201croot causes of migration,\u201d but the aid did not stop migration. Instead, as our new book Aiding Autocrats<\/a>\u00a0shows, Europe\u2019s migration aid has empowered authoritarian leaders and risks greater repression.<\/p>\n While Morocco is often treated as a stable and reliable North African partner by both Europe and the US, Moroccans face an often repressive and dismissive government that has failed<\/a> to address the economic concerns of its citizens. Over the course of the past decade, the government violently crushed popular protests<\/a> focused on economic and political demands, such as addressing unemployment and reducing corruption. Those demonstrations were especially prominent in the north of the country near Ceuta.<\/p>\n In 2024, after years of trying, the EU finally agreed upon a much more strict continentwide immigration plan, helping to solidify the bloc\u2019s move to the right. The EU Pact on Migration and Asylum<\/a>, which emphasises faster deportations and fewer rights of appeal for asylum-seekers, came into effect in June, 2026.<\/p>\n Impact across Europe The emergency summit on 4th August continued the pattern of the 2015 political crisis, after which the EU held more than 20 summits on migration, attempting to corral member states into coordinated actions.<\/p>\n Ahead of the latest summit, European leaders argued that Spain\u2019s plan to provide residency and work permits to 500,000 undocumented migrants<\/a> had incentivized last week\u2019s sudden increase in arrivals.<\/p>\n That would buck historical precedent, however. Both Italy and Greece had large campaigns to grant legal status to undocumented migrants in the 1990s and 2000s, and researchers found no evidence that so-called regularisation processes<\/a> led to further undocumented migration. US President Ronald Reagan also oversaw an amnesty program that legalised nearly three million people<\/a> in 1986 and decreased the number of undocumented migrants<\/a> for decades afterward.<\/p>\n Following the EU summit, member states appeared to be placated<\/a>, and the European Commission promised to double down on funding for border security, cooperation with African governments and increased deportations.<\/p>\n Realistically, however, as long as Europe continues using aid to enhance border security without addressing underlying issues such as economic disparities and poor governance in neighbouring countries, there will likely be more incidents of sudden, chaotic, large-scale migration, not less. Kelsey Norman<\/a> is a fellow for the Middle East at the Baker Institute for Public Policy, Rice University<\/a> and Nicholas R Micinski<\/a> is assistant professor of human rights and cultural relations at the American University School of International Service. <\/a>This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. 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Migrants from Morocco cross into Ceuta by sea and gather near the border fence between the Spanish enclave of Ceuta and Morocco, as seen from Ceuta, Spain, on 30th July, 2026. PICTRUE: Reuters\/Fabian Bimmer<\/p>\n
Moroccans, especially in the north, have long felt discontent at the disparity between their local communities and the Spanish enclaves that are only a few miles apart. Many cite the lack of jobs<\/a> or educational opportunities as reasons to migrate. The GDP per capita in Morocco was only $US4,153<\/a> in 2024 compared to $US26,774 in Ceuta<\/a>. This inequality has led some Moroccan \u201cmule women\u201d<\/a> to haul goods on their backs for sale in Ceuta under dangerous and even deadly conditions.<\/p>\n
Ceuta, along with Melilla, have been under Spanish control for four centuries, though Morocco considers the enclaves<\/a> to be occupied Moroccan territory.<\/p>\n
The July events also make clear that the EU is operating in the long shadow of the 2015 migration \u201ccrisis<\/a>,\u201d when more than a million people arrived in Greece and Italy from Turkey and North Africa, respectively.<\/p>\n
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, perhaps the EU\u2019s leading right-wing immigration restrictionist, latched onto the Ceuta episode. She claimed that<\/a> \u201cuncontrolled illegal immigration poses a real threat to the security of Europe\u2019s borders\u201d. Italy, along with Finland, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and the Czech Republic, called for Spain to be suspended from the Schengen zone. Meloni also reintroduced border checks with Spain, even though Ceuta is not part<\/a> of the free movement zone, and Spain and Italy do not share a land border.<\/p>\n![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/europe\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1785982032_441_count.gif\")
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