Why Spain’s Immigrant Crisis Is Happening

By John Gustavsson

Saturday, August 01, 2026

 

In the span of 24 hours, around 60,000 immigrants crossed the border between Spain and Morocco, making their way into the Spanish exclave Ceuta (population 83,500). This is not the first such migration wave, but its size and speed are unprecedented. This mass arrival is the direct consequence of Spain bucking the European trend of restricting immigration, and it’s quickly turning Spain into a pariah in the European Union.

 

The most immediate cause behind this immigration tsunami is a ruling by the Spanish Supreme Court three weeks ago that restricted so-called hot returns, or turning immigrants away at the border. The greatest change is that everyone who arrived by swimming or by boat must have his case processed individually instead of being immediately turned away, a process that can take months to years. As in the United States, many disappear during the processing and are long gone by the time their applications have been rejected.

 

While this judicial activism no doubt played a role, the Spanish government, led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, also helped cause this crisis. Earlier this year, the government announced amnesty for illegal aliens who fulfilled certain conditions (for example, long-term residence in Spain). It was expected that this amnesty would give legal status to 500,000 illegals. In the end, more than 1.1 million applied. While two-thirds were from Latin America, most of the rest came from Africa — including about 13 percent from Morocco.

 

The Spanish government has stressed that the amnesty applies only to those who were already in the country by January 1, 2026. Yet, it was always naïve to think that an amnesty of past illegal immigrants wouldn’t affect the behavior of future would-be immigrants.

 

Alas, while Pedro Sánchez bears a lot of blame, he was in a tight spot: After the 2023 election, his party stayed in government by cutting a deal with several Basque and Catalan separatist parties. These parties are generally pro-immigration and have little reason to be pragmatic: The more chaos there is in Spain, the more voters in their own region will support independence. Such a situation — a coalition government fashioned from parties with twisted incentives — was never going to end well. On top of this, Sánchez also relies on the support of the far-left populist Podemos party.

 

At the time, Sánchez justified the coalition as a “bulwark” against the “reactionary” right — in particular, the anti-immigration Vox party. Ironically, but not surprisingly, Vox was already reaching new heights in the polls even before this wave.

 

Finally, a third factor may be Morocco itself. Spain and Morocco cooperate on border control: While not explicitly quid pro quo, the unofficial arrangement is that Spain contributes aid to Morocco, and Morocco takes measures to stop people crossing into Ceuta. Either Morocco suddenly dropped the ball, and 60,000 people took the opportunity to cross at the same time, or this was a calculated move. A mere ten days before the wave began, Sánchez visited Algeria and spoke of closer ties. This was frowned upon by Morocco, since Algeria supports the independence of Western Sahara. After the 2015–16 refugee crisis, Turkey made a deal with the EU to stop immigrants from crossing into the European Union; then Turkey used the threat of creating another refugee crisis as leverage to blackmail the EU.

 

If that is indeed what Morocco is doing, it appears to be working. Rather than condemn Morocco for letting the human wave through, Spanish officials were quick to play nice, praising Morocco for its “exemplary” cooperation and stressing that many of those who arrived have already been turned away or have voluntarily returned home. Madrid is clearly not willing to secure the border on its own side — or perhaps it’s unable to given the political makeup of the governing coalition. While Spain could put pressure on Morocco by, for example, freezing aid and, more important, targeting remittances — total global remittances to Morocco make up about 7–8 percent of the country’s GDP — it looks increasingly likely that Spain will continue to play softball and rely on the goodwill of Morocco to do its dirty work.

 

This, however, is not playing well with the rest of the European Union. Within the EU, moves have been made to restrict immigration and facilitate easier return. The right-wing majority in the European Parliament came together earlier this year to pass a new Return Regulation, enabling more deportations. In Germany, which used to be a bastion of pro-immigration sentiment, Chancellor Friedrich Merz has spoken of remigrating 800,000 Syrians (80 percent of all Syrians living in Germany).

 

Spanish immigration policy may, at first glance, appear to be none of the business of the other member states. However, within the EU, all citizens have free movement. And within the Schengen Area — encompassing all of EU except Cyprus and Ireland — there are not even any border checkpoints, meaning that if you can make it to one of these 25 countries, you can easily move to any of the others without ever being asked to identify yourself.

 

In the wake of this migration crisis, Italy has already suspended free travel from Spain and is demanding that Spain be formally suspended from the Schengen Area. Finland and Austria have both echoed this demand, though they have so far not suspended free travel on their own accord. France is not going that far, but it has promised increased checks along the French-Spanish border. The European People’s Party, the largest group in the European Parliament, has called for action from Spain and said it will “demand answers” at the next plenary session.

 

While Spain deserves criticism, there is no getting away from the elephant in the room: Without border checkpoints between member states, it is enough for one country out of 27 to have an open-border policy, for all countries to effectively have open borders. Right now, Spain is Europe’s soft underbelly, but any border nation going down that path could have essentially the same effect. This is the fundamental flaw of the Schengen Area.

 

In 2015, Hungary became the pariah of the European Union when it built a fence to keep immigrants out. Now, Spain is well on its way to that status for letting them in. As Europe comes to terms with the immigration wave into Spain, it would do well to rethink its commitment to passport-free travel.