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Madrid, July 31, 2026.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez responded Friday to a sudden wave of migrants entering the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from Morocco, framing the episode as a breach of national sovereignty and outlining a set of emergency measures to regain control of the border.
Sánchez described the mass crossing in blunt terms, characterizing it as an affront to Spain’s territorial integrity and voicing firm condemnation of what he called an unacceptable incursion. He placed the blame squarely on human trafficking networks operating along the frontier, rather than on the migrants themselves.
According to the prime minister, Spanish officials in contact with Moroccan counterparts in the hours before his statement had picked up on a troubling pattern, in which traffickers appeared to be circulating a distorted reading of a recent Supreme Court ruling. That ruling limits Spain’s ability to carry out immediate hot returns, meaning deportations conducted right at the border, of migrants who swim into Spanish waters without a physical barrier marking the frontier. Sánchez suggested this self serving interpretation of the court’s decision spread quickly through trafficker networks and helped trigger the surge in attempted crossings.
To close that legal gap, Sánchez announced Spain will install a line of buoys marking the maritime border between Ceuta and Morocco. The idea is to create a clearly visible boundary, so that administratively there is no ambiguity about where Spanish waters begin, satisfying the Supreme Court’s conditions for carrying out border returns even for migrants who arrive by swimming.
Alongside the physical barrier, Sánchez said his government would speed up the paperwork for expelling migrants who entered irregularly, noting that many of those who crossed in recent days were already being sent back to Morocco. He added that authorities were working to reach migrants who had moved further from the border, encouraging them to return voluntarily rather than face formal deportation proceedings. The prime minister also reaffirmed Spain’s cooperation with Moroccan authorities, framing
it as essential to countering the trafficking networks he holds responsible for orchestrating the crossings.
Sánchez pointed out that irregular entries into Spain had been trending downward in recent years, describing the Ceuta surge as an isolated spike rather than a reversal of that trend, and praised the institutional cooperation between Spanish and Moroccan authorities that he credited with the overall decline. He also signaled openness to revisiting Spain’s immigration law to make border deportations more efficient going forward. Additionally, he pledged to reinforce the presence of Spanish security forces in Ceuta’s streets to reassure residents amid the crisis.
