People must come first. Over seventy individuals lost their lives on the Spanish side of the border while attempting to reach Ceuta, and current estimates place the total death toll on both sides of the border at more than one hundred. Each loss was a personal tragedy, but also a case of manipulation: the spread of misleading information that cast a perilous route as an open doorway and a policy intended to safeguard the rights and protections of those at the border as if it granted them a right to remain in Spain.
Disinformation and the migration crisis: what happened in Ceuta
The immediate trigger for the mass arrivals was the misrepresentation of a Supreme Court ruling. The ruling established that the special border rejection procedure could not automatically apply to people arriving by swimming, because all administrative action must respect legal safeguards and fundamental rights. It did not declare that anyone who reached Ceuta would be allowed to stay, nor did it prevent their return through ordinary procedures.
However, social media, messaging groups and migrant-smuggling networks spread a different message: merely crossing by sea was enough to shield them from any return. Videos posted by those who managed to enter reinforced a false sense that the crossing was easy and safe. This was intensified by another false claim linking the arrivals to the extraordinary regularisation scheme approved by the Government, even though the measure applies exclusively to people who were already resident in Spain before 1 January 2026 and can demonstrate a continuous period of prior residence.
That is how deception operates: it takes a partial truth, strips it of its limits and converts it into a promise. Combating smuggling networks also means contesting disinformation, strengthening early-warning systems and coordinating rapid and credible public communication between Spain, the European Union and its partners.
“That is how deception works: it takes a partial truth, strips away its limits and turns it into a promise”
Spain’s response has shown that effectiveness and human rights are not incompatible. Official figures indicate that roughly 72,000 people entered Ceuta and around 70,000 had left the city within the first 48 hours; to date, nearly all have departed. There were no onward movements toward the mainland or other EU Member States.
And it is important to stress this: entering Ceuta does not in any way guarantee access to mainland Spain or freedom of movement across the rest of the Schengen area. Ceuta has a special status, and Spain maintains identity and document checks on sea and air links from the city to the mainland and to other Schengen territories.
European home ministers explicitly acknowledged the speed and effectiveness of Spain’s response. They also backed international cooperation, action against smuggling networks, stricter return procedures and improved early-warning and monitoring of disinformation. The response was neither improvised nor permissive: it restored border control without compromising the rule of law.
Nor does this episode undermine our migration policy. On the contrary, it underscores the need to uphold an orderly, safe and regular framework built on cooperation with origin and transit countries, legal pathways, circular migration, integration and respect for human dignity. Regularising people who have been living and working in Spain for months or years does not amount to rewarding a recent irregular entry. It means bringing those individuals out of the informal economy, guaranteeing rights and obligations, promoting social cohesion and acknowledging a social and economic reality that already exists.
From Meloni to Trump: the international battle over the Ceuta narrative
Part of the European right sought to push a different story. Italy and Denmark circulated a letter signed by 22 governments that pointed to Spain’s regularisation programme as a possible “pull factor”. France, Portugal and Luxembourg did not sign the letter.
“Italy and Denmark promoted a letter signed by 22 governments that pointed to Spain’s regularisation programme as a possible “pull factor””
The accusation appears even more politically charged given that some of the critics use similar mechanisms in their own countries. Italy is on track to regularise around 1.1 million people by 2028 through a work-permit system also used to regularise workers already living in the country without legal status. Germany, another country that criticized Spain, granted temporary residence to about 90,800 people through its scheme for people with tolerated status. Regularising a pre-existing migration reality is therefore hardly a uniquely Spanish phenomenon.
A separate and even more troubling development followed when Giorgia Meloni’s Government moved to introduce checks on travelers arriving from Spain, citing the Ceuta crisis. First came the political attack on Spain’s regularisation programme; then, under the pretext of Ceuta, extraordinary checks were imposed on travelers from Spain.
The contradiction is evident. According to Frontex, Italy has been the EU member state with the highest number of irregular border crossings in recent years, sometimes doubling Spain’s figures. Spain did not respond by imposing checks on Italy. Rather, it showed solidarity when pressure focused on Lampedusa, welcomed some of those arriving, and repeatedly opened its ports to migrants rescued along the Central Mediterranean route. It is hard to justify controls justified by the risk of secondary movements from Ceuta when no such movements occurred.
The disinformation was not limited to Europe. Elon Musk labeled the arrivals as an “invasion”, circulated footage likening them to a zombie horde, and even claimed that illegal immigration would consume Spain’s entire budget. From Israel, its ambassador to the United Nations, Danny Danon, used the crisis to question Spanish sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla, calling them “colonial enclaves”. The Israeli Embassy in Spain later distanced itself from those remarks, noting they did not reflect the official stance of the State of Israel.
This challenge to our sovereignty has also found resonance in the United States. Months before the crisis, a report by the House Appropriations Committee, promoted by Republican Mario Díaz-Balart, placed Ceuta and Melilla “in Moroccan territory,” described them as cities “under Spanish administration” and urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio to push Spain-Morocco talks about their “future status.” This is not an official US government position, but it nonetheless sets a troubling precedent.
The Trump Administration later weaponized the Ceuta crisis to attack the Spanish government directly. Donald Trump attributed the events to Spain’s “weak laws” and “mismanagement”, while the State Department claimed the arrivals were a direct result of the Spanish government’s deliberate efforts to facilitate mass illegal immigration into Europe. It was an unfounded accusation that shifted responsibility away from those spreading disinformation and exploiting migratory routes toward Spanish policy itself.
“These are different messages, but they share the same toxic logic: using a human tragedy to fuel fear, spread falsehoods, question our sovereignty or portray Spain as a country out of control”
These are different messages, yet they share the same harmful logic: exploiting a human tragedy to induce fear, disseminate falsehoods, challenge our sovereignty, or depict Spain as a nation out of control. There is no evidence that the United States or Israel caused the Ceuta crisis. There are, however, clear instances of political actors attempting to exploit it to weaken Spain politically.
Reality eventually prevailed. Ursula von der Leyen noted that none of the people who arrived in Ceuta had reached mainland Spain or another EU Member State, and the subsequent gathering of interior ministers expressed unanimous solidarity with Spain and acknowledged the effectiveness of its response. Even those who had initially leveled accusations were compelled to accept the facts.
Because this was not only a Spanish crisis. Ceuta is an external border of the European Union, and any attempt to press on it affects the entire southern frontier of the Union. Spain was defending its territory, but it was also safeguarding an EU external border.
The Pact on Migration and Asylum, in force since June 2026, exists precisely to address situations like this. Its logic is to harmonize secure external borders and efficient procedures with safeguards for individuals and, above all, solidarity mechanisms designed to ensure that a Member State facing extraordinary migratory pressure does not bear the burden alone. Ceuta demonstrates why migration cannot be managed through isolated national choices, mutual recriminations among partners, or ad hoc internal border controls, but requires a genuine common European policy.
Here as well, Spain has shown leadership. Pedro Sánchez has spent years crafting a recognizable international stance grounded in the defense of multilateralism, European autonomy and a distinctly progressive agenda in a Europe tilting toward more conservative positions. The international press has reflected this: The Guardian described him after Ceuta as a progressive exception in Europe; Le Monde highlighted his prominence on the world stage; in the Arab press, Al Jazeera called it the “Spanish exception” when analysing his migration policy, while Asharq Al-Awsat compared his outward shine with his domestic challenges. That international visibility also helps explain why his decisions garner both support and particularly intense attacks from governments and political actors on the opposite side of the spectrum.
“Spain did not pass the problem on to its neighbours or put European free movement at risk: it managed a crisis at one of the Union’s most sensitive borders and helped prevent it from becoming a much larger crisis for Europe”
Within days, his Government managed to bring an extraordinary emergency under control, prevent onward movements to the mainland and to the rest of Europe and shift its partners from initial accusations toward a shared stance of solidarity. Contrary to forecasts that the situation would spiral out of control, Spain did not pass the problem to its neighbours or jeopardize European free movement: it managed a crisis at one of the Union’s most delicate borders and helped avert a much larger European crisis.
What Europe should learn from the Ceuta crisis
Yet the analysis cannot stop at what happened. The principal lesson of Ceuta must guide what comes next. The European Union must bolster its capacity to detect disinformation campaigns tied to migration routes before they translate into mass movements and fatalities. That involves tracking trends across social networks and public channels, early-warning capabilities, fact-checking teams able to respond within hours rather than days, cooperation with digital platforms, and verified messaging delivered in the languages and through channels used by those vulnerable to deception. The fight against people-smuggling networks is also waged in the information space.
There is also a second, deeper contest. We are living through a period of risingly divergent political visions about the proper way to manage migration. A portion of the right and the far right advocates for exceptional measures, externalisation, mass deportations and a perpetual portrayal of migration as a threat. By contrast, progressive governments like Spain argue that security, legality, integration and human rights can coexist. That stance is beginning to gain echoes even across the Atlantic. In the United States, a new generation of leaders on the Democratic Party’s left—figures such as Zohran Mamdani—are placing protection of migrants’ rights and dignity, and opposition to Donald Trump’s mass-deportation policies, at the heart of an alternative political project. These policies are not identical, but they share a core principle: managing migration in an orderly way does not require dehumanising those who migrate.
“We must not accept the frame that pits security against human rights, as though protecting a border required abandoning the rule of law or defending human dignity meant accepting open borders”
We must therefore reject the frame that pits security against human rights, as though safeguarding a border necessitates abandoning the rule of law or that defending human dignity means embracing open borders. That is the frame of the far right. Ours is different: secure borders, international cooperation, action against smuggling networks, efficient procedures, legal pathways and integration.
Ceuta demands accountability, lessons and European solidarity. Above all, however, it requires a renewed look at the victims. They did not die because of a policy grounded in human rights. They died because someone turned disinformation into a business, desperation into opportunity, and the sea into a false promise. Preventing a repetition will require more truth, greater foresight, enhanced cooperation, and a shared migration policy capable of protecting both borders and lives at the same time.
