ROME — A massive surge of migrants rushing a Spanish exclave in North Africa triggered a fresh wave of political attacks against Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on both sides of the Atlantic, with the White House and voices from the right in Spain, Germany, Italy and France leveraging the crisis to lash out against Europe’s leading liberal.
Spanish officials said roughly 49,000 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. 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. Sanchez was schedule to arrive in Ceuta on Friday.
In the United States, a spectrum of right-wing voices from MAGA influencers to the White House latched on to the viral images.
“President [Donald] Trump has long warned Europe what would happen if they continue to implement far-left, globalist policies, including enabling mass migration,” deputy White House press secretary Anna Kelly told Fox News. “Spain and other countries who have adopted this destructive philosophy should immediately reverse course or risk their own demise.”
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, another Spanish exclave, have ebbed and flowed for decades, with the last major surge in 2021. The rush now came after Spain’s Supreme Court ruled this month that migrants arriving by sea to Ceuta or Melilla cannot be summarily returned to Morocco without due process. Spain’s Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska has blamed a “manipulation” of the decision by human traffickers, and Spanish officials have said they will seek to return the recently arrived migrants in Ceuta despite the ruling, with expulsions of several hundred already underway.
The response across Europe was one of shock and outrage. French authorities said they would strengthen border controls with Spain.
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.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called for the suspension of 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 images coming from Ceuta are striking and demonstrate, once again, that uncontrolled illegal immigration poses a concrete threat to the security of Europe’s borders,” Meloni wrote on X.
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 into Europe primarily fueled by 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.”
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