On July 30, Ceuta went from a situation of growing pressure to an unprecedented overflow in a matter of hours. About 80,000 people, according to provisional data, crossed the border, exceeding the capacity of border controls and reception facilities. The subsequent response was swift: resources were mobilized, cooperation with Morocco was intensified, and a few days later, more than 70,000 people had left the city. Both realities are part of the same episode. The speed of the response shows that Spain had the means to regain control of the situation. And the initial overflow, however, compels us to ask whether some of those mechanisms could have been activated earlier. The Ceuta case should force us to draw lessons and to adopt measures so that nothing similar happens again.
The first lesson from Ceuta lies precisely in that interval: between the moment when the first signals appear and the moment when the crisis becomes evident to everyone. Anticipating does not mean knowing in advance the date, the form, and the exact volume of an entry. It means using that margin to prepare the border, the reception, and the city’s services before they reach their limit. On July 29, the autonomous city reported more than 1,500 arrivals by sea in the preceding days, with days of more than two hundred entries and reception resources saturated. Ceuta was already attending to 570 minors, compared with 180 only ten days earlier. The Defense Minister’s briefing on August 25 also indicates organized activity on social networks since July 9, a significant increase in swimming crossings between the 12th and 26th, and announcements disseminated on the 29th to enter the following day. With these data it is not proven that the crisis could be predicted with precision, but it is clear that the risk was increasing. Consequently, more than trying to understand why no one anticipated what would happen, it is necessary to address what we do when several signals coincide, but there is still no certainty about their scope.
“Anticipar no significa conocer de antemano la fecha, la forma y el volumen exacto de una entrada”
Spain has information systems and professionals capable of identifying changes in routes. The problem arises when that information is not translated into decisions in a timely manner. To anticipate, it is necessary to establish who can trigger preventive measures, with which indicators and what resources can be mobilized without waiting for the emergency to be evident. Training additional staff, reception capacity, identification and transfers does not equal declaring a crisis nor, of course, militarizing the border. These measures are flexible, as they can be adapted or withdrawn if the risk decreases. By contrast, a policy that waits to have all the data will always be a reactive policy.
An example two weeks after the incident put this first lesson into practice: rumors circulated on social networks that another massive entry would occur in mid-August, but this time the security forces of both countries were deployed in time and there was no crossing.
The second lesson is that a general improvement in the figures can mask a rapid deterioration on a specific route. In mid-July, irregular arrivals across Spain had fallen by 25%, and in the Canary Islands by 61%. At the same time, land entries into Ceuta had risen by 150% compared to the same period in 2025. Spain could present a favorable balance, yet one of its borders was rapidly approaching the limit of its capacity. It should be remembered that migratory routes do not evolve in isolation. A reduction in the Canary Islands can coexist with an increase in Ceuta, the Balearic Islands, or the Peninsula as a consequence of higher controls, changes in external cooperation, or decisions by the people themselves and the networks that facilitate journeys. A relaxation of measures based solely on the overall data or on a trend risks delaying the detection of where pressure is accumulating.
“A general improvement in the figures can hide a rapid deterioration on a specific route”
The third lesson is that external cooperation is essential, but it does not replace internal capacity. The reduction in arrivals through certain routes cannot be understood without the work done with Morocco, Mauritania, Senegal, and other countries of origin and transit. That cooperation must continue and be strengthened because it helps prevent dangerous departures, combat the networks, facilitate returns, and create opportunities and avenues for legal mobility. However,
The fourth lesson is that regaining control of the border does not mean the crisis has ended. The exit of the vast majority of those who entered quickly reduced immediate pressure, but almost a month later thousands of people remained in Ceuta awaiting a solution. In fact, the government acknowledged on August 26 that it still did not know the exact figure because many people remained unregistered. The situation of the minors is a particularly clear illustration that this crisis, in reality, continues. That same day, August 26, the Interior Ministry corrected the number of identified minors to about 1,500 after removing duplicate files. This figure includes minors who were already under guardianship before July 30 and could still increase. Additionally, nearly three hundred girls remained housed in facilities improvised by neighborhood associations, awaiting enrollment in the protection system. The fact that the government continues to expand places and seek solutions almost a month later confirms that the border emergency has given way to an administrative, social, and protection crisis that remains unresolved.
“The departure of the vast majority of those who entered quickly reduced the immediate pressure, but still thousands of people remain in Ceuta awaiting a solution”
Each person who remains in Ceuta requires an individual decision. Their identification must be completed, it must be determined whether they request international protection, it must be checked whether there is any vulnerability, and it must be established which procedure applies. In the case of minors, age must be verified when there are doubts, guardianship must be assumed, their families must be located, and a decision must be made whether reunification, referral to another autonomous community, or, when all guarantees are met and in the best interest of the child, repatriation should proceed. The outcomes will not be identical, but all cases must be resolved.
The European Pact on Migration and Asylum, applicable since June 12, also provides instruments to accelerate part of this processing. It states that the registration and initial assessment of those who arrive irregularly at an external border should be carried out, in principle, within a maximum of seven days. It also contemplates border asylum procedures of up to twelve weeks for certain profiles. In this regard, including Morocco on the European list of safe-origin countries allows for faster examination of applications from its nationals, although it does not authorize automatic rejection. Accelerating processing does not mean discarding these safeguards, but providing the necessary means to apply them without unnecessarily prolonging the uncertainty.
Spain has recently shown that it can massively increase its administrative capacity when processing becomes a priority. During this year’s extraordinary regularization, it received 1,174,978 applications and, a month after the filing deadline ended, 609,737 had already been processed. Given that the comparison is not exact, since a residence permit for a person already living in Spain does not pose the same challenges as processing the files of those who just arrived in Ceuta, the figures do demonstrate that when there is political priority, teams can be reinforced, new channels established, and technical support mobilized to absorb an extraordinary volume of cases. My recommendation is to apply that same logic, on a much smaller scale, to Ceuta. From the early days a temporary setup could have been formed with international protection and immigration officials, police, prosecutors, child services, interpreters, legal aid, and consular liaisons. The aim would not be to resolve all cases in the same way or to reduce safeguards, but to examine each situation as soon as possible and to execute the appropriate solution quickly. In fact, we are still time.
“When there is a political priority, teams can be strengthened, new channels can be enabled, and technical support can be mobilized to handle an extraordinary volume of cases”
The capacity to react cannot be measured only by the number of people who left Ceuta in the first days. It must also be evaluated by how long it takes to provide a legal response to those who remain and for the city to regain its ordinary functioning. Respecting guarantees requires studying each case, but it does not force a slow pace. A crisis like this continues even when the border images disappear. And it only ends when people stop living in provisional arrangements and the city stops bearing its consequences.
The final lesson is European. Ceuta is part of the European Union’s external border, but the initial crisis management depended mainly on Spain and on its bilateral relationship with Morocco. The European Pact on Migration and Asylum, in force since June 12, provides solidarity and operational support instruments for states under pressure. The usefulness of those mechanisms will depend on whether they can be activated quickly and not only after overflow has already occurred.
Spain should know in advance what support it can request, what personnel or resources it can receive, how transfers can be organized, and how long each instrument takes to come into operation. European solidarity cannot be limited to political backing after the fact, but must be part of preparation. Ceuta does not show that Spain lacks control over its migration policy, but it should not be concluded that the system functioned perfectly because most people left the city in a few days. This crisis shows a notable capacity to react once all resources are activated, but also an excessive dependence on external cooperation remaining, on routes evolving as expected, and on the crisis being visible in time to mobilize the response.
“European solidarity cannot be limited to post-crisis political support, but must be part of preparation”
In conclusion, we should not need a border and a city to reach the limit of their capacity to activate all available mechanisms. Anticipating does not mean guessing the date or the number of the next crisis. It means being prepared so that, when forecasts fail, the management does not fail with them.
