Ceuta crisis puts Spain’s Sánchez under fire over migration policies

Spain’s opposition parties are taking aim at Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s migration policies following the arrival of tens of thousands of unauthorized migrants in the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. Over the past 24 hours, the migrants have forced their way into the heavily fortified autonomous city, which covers 18.5 square kilometers on the northern coast of Africa. With the Civil Guard forces that normally defend Ceuta overwhelmed, the Spanish army was mobilized late on Thursday to secure the border. Speaking from Ceuta, where he flew to meet with officials overseeing the crisis on Friday, Sánchez characterized the situation as “an attack, a violation of the territorial integrity of Spain.” Spain’s interior ministry on Friday said that approximately 50,000 people had entered Ceuta — whose normal population is around 80,000 — illegally. Of that total, approximately half have since voluntarily returned to Morocco. The Spanish presidency said migrants are departing from Ceuta at a rate of about 150 people per minute. In Madrid, Sánchez’s critics said the crisis was one of his own making, triggered by the government’s scheme to grant legal status to more than 1 million unauthorized migrants. Santiago Abascal, leader of the far-right Vox party, accused Sánchez of inciting “an invasion” with his migration policies, and said the crisis showed the prime minister “behaves like an enemy of Spain.” “Every future rape or stabbing will have been imported by Pedro Sánchez, and his legacy is the collapse of our housing stock and our health care system,” he added. “Pedro Sánchez is the main culprit for what Spaniards are suffering and will suffer.” “This national emergency can only be resolved by kicking him out before he tries to steal the next elections, and by prosecuting the traitor and mafioso Pedro Sánchez,” Abascal concluded. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, leader of the center-right People’s Party, similarly linked the crisis in Ceuta to “irresponsible decisions, like those taken with regard to our migration policy,” and said the videos of overrun border posts in Ceuta reflected “an image of decadence that Spain does not deserve.” In a post on X, the People’s Party’s secretary general, Miguel Tellado, said “no one can be surprised that thousands of people want to enter a country that regularizes more than a million irregular immigrants overnight. Not only are we not stopping the avalanche, but we are sending the message that those who come soon will be able to become Spanish.” Meanwhile, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the party’s high-profile president of the Madrid region, accused Sánchez of “allowing the invasion of Spain via Ceuta to try to cover up all of his trials,” referring to the tangle of corruption cases ensnaring the Socialist party. Spain’s government hits back A spokesperson for the foreign ministry retorted that the crisis in Ceuta had nothing to do with the government’s migration policies and pointed out that none of the people who have illegally entered Ceuta will be eligible to benefit from its legal status scheme. “This process is based on very specific conditions, such as proof of residency in Spain before January 1, 2026, and having resided in Spain for five consecutive months at the time of application,” said the spokesperson. Moreover, the deadline for filing applications for the scheme, which was launched in April, was in June. The Sánchez government has defended the legalization scheme as a necessary measure to ensure the country’s long-term economic growth amid declining birth rates, and the move was backed by unlikely allies like Spain’s conservative employers’ association and the Catholic Church. But the scheme is contentious domestically, with some polls showing over half of Spaniards believe the country already hosts too many foreigners. It has also drawn criticism from figures like Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who challenged Sánchez’s policies during a meeting of European leaders last month. Meloni on Thursday calle