ROME — The sudden arrival of a massive group of migrants at a Spanish exclave in North Africa triggered a fresh wave of political attacks against Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on both sides of the Atlantic, as voices from the right in Spain, Germany, Italy and France, with the White House joining in, lashed out against Europe’s leading liberal in office.
Spanish officials said nearly 50,000 migrants rushed the Spanish territory over the past 24 hours, swimming or climbing over fences into the small outpost with a population of 83,000, 11 miles from the Spanish mainland and accessible via an hour-long ferry. Most of them have since been sent back. At least 57 people died in the mad dash to Ceuta, Spanish authorities said.
As images of the crush spread quickly via social media, Spain responded, ordering a military deployment on Thursday to restore order. On Friday, Spain reinforced security and border fences, with Morocco deploying water cannons to push migrants back.
The migrants were being expelled almost as quickly as they came. By Friday afternoon, around 6 p.m. local time, more than 48,000 migrants had been returned to Morocco through the Tarajal crossing, where the border between Ceuta and Morocco meets the sea, the Spanish Interior Ministry said.
The sudden spike in irregular arrivals — one far greater than the records seen during the region’s 2015 migrant crisis fueled by the Syrian civil war — sparked outrage across the European political spectrum. By comparison, only 2,698 migrants had arrived in Ceuta and Melilla, another Spanish exclave, via land during the first six months of the year, according to the Spanish Interior Ministry. In 2015, peak days saw around 11,000 migrants cross in the E.U. territory.
The rush raised speculation of a repeat of 2021, when tensions between Spain and Morocco led to the Moroccans dropping border controls, allowing 8,000 migrants into Ceuta in two days.
Citing Foreign Ministry sources, Spanish media outlets reported that Spanish authorities were discounting that theory, and Sánchez publicly blamed human traffickers responding to a recent Supreme Court decision that migrants arriving by sea to Ceuta or Melilla cannot be summarily returned without due process.
Migrants interviewed by Spanish media on the ground said they had mobilized after seeing messages via phone and social media networks suggesting the border was “open” and their passage would not be hindered.
Morocco’s ambassador in Spain, Karima Benyaich, said in public remarks that the migration had unfolded “outside of our will” and that Morocco “wants these citizens to return to our country,” according to media reports.
Speaking Friday from Ceuta, Sánchez sought to defend the government’s response, including additional deployments of police and civil guards. He said authorities would place buoys in the breakwaters to act as a “containment barrier.”
He decried the arrivals as a “violation” of Spanish territory, noting that irregular arrivals to Spain had been decreasing before this week.
“This situation is unprecedented,” he said. “It breaks the trend that we have been recording throughout Spain of a systematic reduction year after year, month by month, in the arrivals of irregular migrants.”
In the United States, a spectrum of right-wing voices from MAGA influencers to the White House latched on to the viral images.
“I saw Spain yesterday, and I watched the catastrophe that took place,” President Donald Trump said Friday. “It was, it was like an invasion of a country by hundreds of thousands of people. And that same thing is going to happen to us if the Republicans don’t get elected, except worse, much bigger, much easier to get into, despite the fact that we have built thousands of miles of wall.”
Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff who helped shape Trump’s anti-migration crackdown, shared a video of migrants rushing Ceuta by sea and land, claiming Democrats would “rejoice” over the images of “your home trampled and stolen by invaders.”
For Sánchez, already mired in a political crisis over corruption scandals within his inner circle, the fallout — both global and domestic — was swift and growing.
Migrant flows to Ceuta and Melilla have ebbed and flowed for decades.
Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska has blamed a “manipulation” of the Supreme Court decision by human traffickers, and officials have said they will seek to return the recently arrived migrants in Ceuta despite the ruling, with expulsions of several hundred already underway.
Spain has struggled to limit irregular migration to its North African exclaves from Morocco, whose territory surrounds Ceuta and Melilla. Some speculation centered on whether Morocco had eased enforcement following Sánchez‘s recent trip to Morocco’s adversarial neighbor, Algeria — an explanation discounted by some Spanish and Moroccan officials.
The response across Europe was one of outrage, including from the mainstream political classes. French authorities said they would strengthen border controls with Spain.
The surge came as the region is already moving to impose tougher rules on irregular migrants, with more generous Spain largely viewed as a liberal outlier.
“The images coming from Ceuta are unacceptable,” declared European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, demanding the “swift” return of those who arrived in Ceuta. “We cannot allow anyone to come to our Union without abiding by our rules.”
The strongest response came from a host of anti-immigrant parties across Europe, who sought to capitalize on Sánchez’s woes and portray Spain — which is moving forward with a plan to legalize hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants — as a liability and magnet for irregular migration.
Travel from Ceuta to mainland Spain requires border and identity checks, including valid visas for those needing them. Those measures were put in place to control migration from the Spanish exclaves into the European Union, though some politicians insisted the events of recent days proved they were not enough.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni announced Friday that Rome would suspend arrivals from Spain from the Schengen agreement that allows free movement between 29 European countries — an agreement already under stress as several countries have reintroduced border checks. The government of Finland joined Italy in calling for Spain to be excluded from the agreement.
The Italian move could snarl travel between two popular European summer destinations — Italy and Spain.
“This is an extraordinary measure, adopted to safeguard national security and prevent possible repercussions for our Nation,” Meloni said on X. “The measure will be kept in force only for the time necessary, with particular attention to limiting any impact on summer tourist flows.”
The diplomatic spat with Italy escalated earlier as Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani joined Meloni in calling for Spain’s suspension from Schengen, prompting a rebuke from his Spanish counterpart, who summoned Italy’s ambassador to Spain in protest.
“This message from the foreign minister of a friendly country and partner from whom we expect European solidarity rather than party-political demagoguery is unworthy,” responded Spain’s Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares.
In Germany and France, hard-right parties vying for power latched on to the crisis too.
“Borders must now be closed and rejections rigorously enforced. 2015 must not repeat itself!” Alice Weidel, co-leader of the Alternative for Germany party, declared on X, referring to the rush of refugees amid the Syrian civil war.
Sánchez has emerged as a symbol of Europe’s left, challenging Trump and criticizing the war in Iran, while also turning Spain into a counterpoint in the migrant debate by rolling out a broad legalization plan and adopting a more accepting tone, particularly regarding migrants arriving from Spanish-speaking countries in Latin America.
Sánchez pushed back on X, saying “the Government of Spain is fully committed to providing an immediate response to the situation in Ceuta” and saying, “this is the moment to build solutions, with responsibility and cooperation.”
Spain’s civil guard association, the AUGC, blamed a “shortage of personnel, insufficient resources, and agents working to the limit,” in a post on X.
The surge, which built in recent days, caused chaos in the tiny territory of Ceuta. Videos verified by The Washington Post show hundreds of people descending over hills in northern Morocco attempting the reach the Spanish exclave. Once at the border, videos show migrants crossing into Ceuta by swimming, climbing fences and breaking through a gate. Most of those arriving carry few possessions, some wearing only swimming trunks.
Some businesses shuttered their doors and many residents were remaining indoors, according to Spain’s RTVE network.
“It’s like an apocalypse. Tides of people everywhere,” José Carlos Lara, a Ceuta business owner, told the network. The crisis provided fresh ammunition to Sánchez’s domestic political enemies.
“Just as serious as what is happening is that the Government reacts with weakness,” declared Alberto Núñez Feijóo, president of the center-right Popular Party.
Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s far-right Vox party, sought to pin the blame on Sánchez’s “massive regularization,” while portraying the surge as an “invasion.”
In his comments from Ceuta, Sánchez largely sidestepped the regularization effort, focusing instead on his government’s steps to curb irregular migration.
Ellen Francis in Brussels, Imogen Piper in London and Michael Birnbaum in Washington contributed to this report.
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