![\"CEUTA,](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/GettyImages-2288489248.jpg\")
\n A member of the Spanish armed services watches over migrants crossing the border between Spain and Morocco on July 31, 2026, in Ceuta, Spain.\u00a0Photo: Adri Salido\/Getty Images <\/p>\n
\n A member of the Spanish armed services watches over migrants crossing the border between Spain and Morocco on July 31, 2026, in Ceuta, Spain.\u00a0Photo: Adri Salido\/Getty Images <\/p>\n
Over 50,000 people last week risked their lives<\/a> to cross the border between Morocco and Ceuta, the tiny Spanish enclave in north Africa, in the hope of making it to mainland Europe. <\/p>\n The vast majority have already been returned to Morocco; fewer than 2,000 refugees remain on Ceuta and are, according to on-the-ground reports, in urgent need of food and shelter. Over 80 people reportedly died during the crossings, most from drowning.<\/p>\n The crisis for those seeking to enter Europe through Ceuta last week, including those who have been sent back, has already been framed according to a putrid, far-right political fulcrum. As a wide array of responses to the situation on Ceuta make clear, a commitment to harsh border regimes is not the sole preserve of the far right.<\/p>\n Once again<\/a>, liberals and centrists who claim to decry the right\u2019s anti-immigrant stances are themselves treating immigrants as a threat<\/a> to be secured against.<\/p>\n For the international far right, images of thousands of desperate young African men entering European Union territory \u2014 little matter that Ceuta is, in fact, not on mainland Europe \u2014 has been fodder for predictable racist fearmongering and calls for extremist border rule. Far-right leaders blamed the crossings of the left-wing Spanish government\u2019s extremely reasonable plans<\/a> to regularize over 1 million undocumented immigrants who have already been living and working in Spain for at least five months.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s terrible. Remember that picture. That\u2019s going to be us in three years if the wrong side gets in,\u201d President Donald Trump told<\/a> Fox News, in a groundless attempt to use the suffering on Ceuta to his advantage. A spokesperson for the White House decried<\/a> Spain\u2019s new immigration regularization proposal as \u201cfar-left, globalist policies.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, conservative and right-wing leaders across Europe and the U.K. echoed similar sentiments, conjuring the old lie of an \u201cinvasion\u201d confronting the West. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni proposed<\/a> Spain be suspended from the Schengen Area. A total of 22 EU leaders, including Meloni and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, wrote<\/a> a joint letter to the European Commission expressing \u201cserious concerns\u201d about how Spain\u2019s decision to grant legal status to immigrants served as a \u201cpull factor.\u201d<\/p>\n In response to these attacks and criticisms, several liberal and centrist politicians, institutions, and media organs have pushed back. Analyses in the New York Times<\/a> and The Atlantic<\/a> have stressed, for example, that not one of the people who crossed into Ceuta managed to make it to mainland Europe. These responses are framed as a counterpoint to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro S\u00e1nchez\u2019s right-wing critics.<\/p>\n European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also defended<\/a> S\u00e1nchez against right-wing attacks, by praising the Spanish authorities\u2019 \u201cswift handling\u201d in \u201csuccessfully preventing illegal movement onwards to mainland Spain and Europe.\u201d<\/p>\n We\u2019re independent of corporate interests \u2014 and powered by members. Join us. <\/p>\n Join Our Newsletter <\/p>\n Thank You For Joining! <\/p>\n \n Original reporting. Fearless journalism. Delivered to you. <\/p>\n Will you take the next step to support our independent journalism by becoming a member of The Intercept?\n <\/p>\n By signing up, I agree to receive emails from The Intercept and to the Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Use<\/a>.<\/p>\n Sanchez himself took a similar line.<\/p>\n \u201cIn less than 48 hours, my government has succeeded in fully restoring control over the border,\u201d he wrote on Saturday in a response to criticism from other European leaders.<\/p>\n The mainstream defense against far-right fearmongering, then, was merely a regurgitation of the right\u2019s anti-immigrant premise. Stopping immigrants who have been forced to take irregular routes, according to this logic, is a good thing. What the far right got wrong, by the lights of these centrists and liberals, was not their virulent racism, but rather that the claims of an \u201cinvasion\u201d of Europe are not factually accurate.<\/p>\n \u201cSpain and Germany\u2019s centrist responses have been to \u2018assure\u2019 the E.U. that borders are fortified,\u201d wrote<\/a> migrant justice organizer and scholar Harsha Walia<\/a> on Instagram. \u201cThis rebuttal simply buttresses the premise of border securitization.\u201d<\/p>\n The reasons<\/a> for the surge in crossings are not yet fully known; speculation abounds about the role of Moroccan and other state forces. A few things are, however, clear: Misinformation had spread in the preceding days on social media suggesting, falsely, that a recent Supreme Court ruling in Spain would prevent the Spanish authorities returning immigrants.<\/p>\n In a world of increasing and inevitable mass migration, it is a moral failure<\/a> to treat the swift removal of immigrants<\/a> as a victory. Such a framing is also a gift to the far right, who will continue to benefit within a political consensus that treats immigration as a bad thing<\/a>.<\/p>\n Only a few voices on the European left have placed focus where it belongs: with supporting immigrants who remain on Ceuta.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat is happening in Ceuta is not a natural disaster, but the result of political decisions,\u201d said<\/a> Clara B\u00fcnger, a member of Germany\u2019s The Left Party. \u201cGermany and the EU have a duty to help with providing for refugees and to take in those seeking protection.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cPeople are fleeing war, poverty, and the climate crisis,\u201d she noted. \u201cHigher walls won\u2019t stop them; they will only make the escape more deadly. The most important thing now is that no one else dies.\u201d<\/p>\n
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