(CNN) — Around 50,000 migrants crossed into Spain’s North African exclave of Ceuta this week, a mass influx that overwhelmed local authorities. At least 57 people died during the crossings, which prompted tighter border security measures across Europe.
Spanish leaders said they were working to expel all those who had entered as quickly as possible, and said by Friday evening that most migrants had been returned to neighboring Morocco. Many had returned voluntarily after failing to find food or shelter in Ceuta. However, the causes of the surge remain disputed.
Spanish officials including Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said human trafficking networks encouraged the crossings, by misrepresenting a recent Supreme Court ruling on migrant returns.
According to that explanation, the traffickers and migrants incorrectly assumed that the ruling meant anyone attempting to enter by sea could not be deported. However, the legal decision was extremely narrow.
Spanish Supreme Court ruling
On June 29, Spain’s Supreme Court issued a ruling stating that authorities cannot summarily deport migrants who arrive by sea without due process, because they did not cross the physical border infrastructure referenced in Spanish law.
The decision covers migrants intercepted while swimming into the exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla – also on the North African coast – who have often been subject to immediate removal to Morocco without any formal proceedings.
“It just means you cannot push them back at sea because there is no crossing of a formal border,” Gemma Pinyol-Jiménez, head of migration policies and diversity at Instrategies and an associate researcher at GRITIM–Pompeu Fabra University, told CNN.
“The idea is to facilitate the work of the police, but it doesn’t mean these people can stay in Ceuta.”
Pinyol-Jiménez said the required process could be very brief, allowing people to be deported within days. “And it still means that if you have entered irregularly, you can be sent back to Morocco, because there is also an agreement with Morocco,” she said. Spain and Morocco signed a bilateral readmission agreement in 1992 that requires Morocco, under certain conditions, to take back third-country nationals who entered Spain irregularly via Moroccan territory.
Daniel Thym, a professor of public, European and international law at the University of Konstanz, described the decision as “a very technical ruling.” He said it distinguishes between migrants who climb over the border barriers and those who reach Spanish territory by swimming around them, and it does not constitute a sweeping human rights judgment.
“The court even laid down a possible way the government might circumvent the ruling,” he said, referring to judges’ suggestion that Spain could install physical barriers in the water that would once again allow immediate returns.
“It’s important to understand that migration movements almost never have one single cause,” Thym said. “The ruling might have been a trigger, but there were many other factors at play.”
Beyond the ruling
Spain’s relatively strong economy, a recent regularization program for undocumented migrants already living in the country, favorable summer conditions at sea and longstanding economic pressures on young people in Morocco and elsewhere in North Africa have also been cited by experts as possible drivers for the influx.
Thym also pointed to the large number of adolescents among those who crossed.
“Many of them are 16 or 17,” Thym said. “That creates problems because it’s officially unaccompanied minors. But if they apply for asylum, they get a proper procedure, which often takes months, if not years.”
According to official statistics, the unemployment rate for Moroccans aged 15 to 24 remains high, at 37.2%, despite the nationwide unemployment rate falling slightly to 13% in 2025.
“There is a constant structural attraction to Europe for younger people. The Spanish economy is doing very well,” Thym said.
Spain is also moving in the opposite direction to many other European countries, which are shifting to the right and tightening immigration policies. Earlier this year, Sánchez’s government announced a regularization program initially expected to give 500,000 undocumented migrants already living in Spain a path to legal status.
Thym said applications far exceeded that initial estimate.
“More than 1 million undocumented migrants applied,” he said.
Historical dispute
Ceuta and Melilla are two Spanish territories on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast, which together form the European Union’s only land borders with Africa. They have long been among Europe’s most sensitive migration routes, protected by high border fences and close cooperation between Spain and Morocco to prevent irregular crossings.
Although they are Spanish territory, the exclaves occupy a unique legal and political position. Morocco claims sovereignty over both territories, making migration there not only a humanitarian issue but also a recurring source of diplomatic tension.
A similar migration surge in 2021 was widely viewed as retaliation during a diplomatic dispute over Western Sahara. Moroccan authorities were widely accused of easing border controls after Spain allowed a leader of the Western Sahara independence movement to receive medical treatment.
“These kinds of organized movements don’t happen without, at minimum, passive collaboration from Moroccan authorities,” Pinyol-Jiménez said. Morocco has denied any involvement.
A wider crisis
The migrant surge has quickly become a political flashpoint across Europe.
Italy announced temporary border controls for arrivals from Spain, while France said it would reinforce checks along its frontier. Spain’s opposition has accused Sánchez’s government of losing control of the country’s borders, while European leaders have renewed calls for stricter migration policies.
Although Ceuta is Spanish territory and part of the Schengen area, movement between the exclave and mainland Spain is already subject to identity checks, meaning migrants who reach Ceuta do not automatically gain unrestricted access to continental Europe.
Meanwhile, Sánchez has already announced plans to install floating barriers in the water around Ceuta – a move the government says would comply with the Supreme Court ruling while restoring the ability to carry out immediate returns.
The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
