Refugee influx from Morocco into Spain

Judith Kohlenberger of the Wirtschaftsuniversität Wien has become a prominent commentator on immigration issues in the EU. And she is one of the best-informed and insightful analysts of the issue.

She posted a Facebook comment August 1 on the current situation of immigration into the Spanish city/enclave of Ceuta, describe here in a news report from Britain’s Channel 4:

Having paid close attention to immigration in the US and now living as a (completely legal, fully documented) immigrant in the EU, I’m routinely frustrated at the superficiality of the political dialogue and often the mainstream reporting on immigration issues.

In the ongoing politics of defending liberal democracy, immigration continues to be a centrally important issue, because rightwing anti-democracy parties make national identity as well as race and religion a central part of ethnonationalist identity politics (völkisch politics in German).

The German version of Kohlenberger’s post is imbedded below. Here is my English translation interspersed with my commentary:

“Three aspects that become clear from the still-confused situation in Ceuta, and the role of Morocco, Spain and the USA for Europe's migration policy.” (JK) That refers to the current panic over the influx of thousands of refugees from Morocco to the autonomous Spanish city of Ceuta. From Google Maps:

As the map above shows, Ceuta is on the Moroccan side of the Strait of Gibraltar. Britannica has already updated its entry on Ceuta to include the recent crisis:

Ceuta is a Spanish exclave, military post, and free port on the coast of Morocco, at the Mediterranean entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar. It is an autonomous city administered by Spain. Ceuta, Melilla (also an exclave), and other tiny islets along the coast of North Africa constitute the territories of Spanish North Africa.

Ceuta is surrounded by a double fence with barbed wire. In 2006, the fence was raised and military personnel and weapons were increased to secure the borders. Even so, thousands of immigrants, mainly African refugees, unsuccessfully try to cross the border every year. In July 2026, mass migration into Ceuta caused prime minister Pedro Sánchez to deploy further military units there. (2)

The visual is important to understanding the sleazy and dishonest politics of the political xenophobes. When we see and hear reports of dark-skinned young men running across a border into Europe, that immediate gets the adrenalin of völkisch types flowing. And of course they are calling this an “invasion” in typical Trumpista language. Sánchez calls the sudden influx of refugees from Morocco ““a violation of Spain’s territorial integrity.”

For anyone who’s not an oxycontin-head – forgive the retro Rush Limbaugh reference – thousands of unarmed civilian refugees coming across the border is not a military invasion. Non-rightwing parties should not encourage or validate the use of “invasion” for refugee influxes, or as a part of “hybrid warfare.” The latter phrase is fine for hostile cyberattacks by other nations. But describing immigrants as invaders legitimates ignoring international law on refugees as well as the use of vigilante violence against immigrants. This is as true for the US as for Europe.

Spain’s current Prime Minister (since 2017) is Pedro Sánchez, head of the main social-democratic party, the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). He is generally considered a left politician and has drawn hostile comments from the Trump regime, like various other European leaders across the spectrum, including the hard-right Georgia Meloni. And he’s publicly treated this as some kind of hostile act by the government of Morocco.

There is a foreign policy issue between Spain and Morocco that probably played some part in the sudden surge of refugees this week.

[T]he crossing could be linked to the rivalry between Morocco and Algeria, and a recent trip by the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, to Algiers.

The last mass border crossing, in May 2021, took place after Morocco loosened border controls during a diplomatic row with Spain over Spain’s decision to allow the leader of the Western Sahara independence movement, the Polisario Front, to be treated for Covid-19 in Spain.

Morocco and the Polisario Front both lay claim to Western Sahara, which was under Spanish rule until 1975, when colonial authorities handed over the territory to Morocco and Mauritania.

That diplomatic crisis ended in 2022 when Madrid reversed its longstanding policy of neutrality and backed Morocco’s plan for Western Sahara – a move that had caused a diplomatic rift between Madrid and Algiers, which supports the Polisario group.

Sánchez visited Algiers on 20 July – the first such visit by a Spanish head of government in four years – marking a thaw in relations with Algeria. (3)

But, “Sánchez blamed the sudden inflow on human traffickers spreading rumours about a recent Spanish supreme court ruling that irregular migrants arriving by sea cannot be immediately returned.” He may have reasons that he doesn’t want to place foreign-policy issue on the front burner at the moment. But resorting to cheap xenophobic posturing – it’s the court’s fault for recognizing the rights of immigrants and refugees! – is destructive in itself.

And European politics over the last decade and a half have shown again and again that when left and center-right policies pander to xenophobia, it consistently strengthens the far right/Trumpist/Orbánist parties and groups.

Kohlenberger’s first major point:

The supposedly "demotivating" effect of the CEAS [Common European Asylum System] reform, which has been in force since 12 June, is clearly not occurring in view of strong migration drivers such as high youth unemployment in Morocco (which decades of empirical migration research confirms). Ceuta has one of the most massive border fortifications in the world, secured with double fences made of barbed wire, and yet tens of thousands arrived. The illusion of deterrence has developed further cracks - and makes Europe susceptible to blackmail by outsourcing (border) power to third countries. [emphasis added]

What does the new CEAS system involve?

The new "Common European Asylum System" (CEAS) will require that asylum seekers undergo a mandatory preliminary screening at the EU's external borders, in an attempt to speed up procedures for people coming from countries with low rates of acceptance of asylum applications.

This means that asylum seekers from countries such as Pakistan, Iran, Russia, Turkey and Nigeria will be subjected to fast-track border procedures in camps that are largely closed off. According to Eurostat, the EU's statistical office, fewer than 20% of the asylum seekers from these and dozens of other countries have their rights to asylum recognized.

It’s not yet usual to call these concentration camps. But in practice that’s what is envisioned here, like those the ICE Gestapo and the Trump regime are using in the United States. Greece currently has such a system of closed camps, and it functions pretty badly, as one can easily imagine. But it’s a perfect concept for xenophobic politicians because it encourages people to see refugees as bums and criminals.

Another leading immigration policy expert, Gerald Knaus, points to the unrealistic, largely scam nature of the last CEAS (Knaus also speaks in the Channel 4 report above just after 3:30):

According to the European Commission, the largest groups of asylum seekers in 2025 came from Afghanistan and Syria. The asylum recognition rate for people hailing from these two countries is over 20%. Consequently, individuals from these countries do not go through border procedures but rather through regular asylum procedures. And responsibility for these procedures also lies with the countries of first entry.

Knaus points out that although Germany and Austria do not lie on the EU's external border, more than half of all successful asylum applications in the EU within the last 10 years were granted in these countries.

Knaus believes that this will remain unchanged and that the numbers will be influenced more by developments in the asylum seekers' countries of origin than by EU law. "If the fall of the Assad regime brings an end to the exodus of Syrians entering the EU, then the number of asylum applications in Germany and Austria will also drop dramatically. That had nothing to do with the interior minister, nor does it have anything to do with CEAS, nor does it have anything to do with border controls," he told DW. Since the regime change in Syria at the end of 2024, the number of people leaving the country has been declining sharply. (4)

The EU countries and Switzerland are part of the 29-country Schengen Area, which authorizes and requires the first country of arrival, whether for refugees or authorized travelers, to check the credentials of the person entering the Schengen Area. In the case of asylum seekers, that creates a complication when larger surges of refugees occur, in that most of them will come to countries like Greece or Spain or Italy. And in the normal arrangement, the country of entry is required to handle the asylum request. As Knaus’ comment indicates, in practice Germany has often handled asylum processes for people who entered the Schengen Area via another member country.

Kohlenberger’s second point:

Spain's migration policy, which, by the way, is by no means as liberal at the borders and in border protection as commonly assumed, is encountering an acute dilemma that will soon become apparent in other European countries as well: Increasing demand for labor, especially in sectors such as agriculture and tourism, which are increasingly unattractive for locals, runs up against the imperative of isolation and deterrence and still far too few legal access routes to the country. What young Moroccans are obviously looking for in Spain: work (not social benefits). [emphasis added]

Europe needs more foreign labor if it wants to have healthy and growing economies in coming decades. Italy’s Meloni – whose political party is a lineal descendent of Mussolini’s fascist party – has actually suggested some pragmatic policies, such as creating easier paths for legal immigrants to work come to Italy to work. But she also indulges in dumb demagoguery. Her government set up two small centers in Albania to hold immigrants detained trying to enter Italy.

Italy opened two centres in Albania – in Gjadër and Shëngjin – in 2024 as part of a controversial pact aimed at processing the asylum applications of adult men intercepted at sea by Italian government vessels and detaining refused asylum seekers pending their deportation.

The five-year deal, which is costing Italy an estimated €130-140m (£112-120m) a year, has faced numerous legal challenges. Citing European law, Italian judges have rejected many transfers on the grounds that migrants’ countries of origin were unsafe to be repatriated to if their asylum requests were rejected.

Several people are believed to have arrived at the facilities since the European parliament adopted a plan this month enabling the creation of offshore “return hubs” – centres outside the EU where undocumented people can be held for unspecified periods while waiting to be sent back to their home country. [emphasis added] (5)

Although there is a scam aspect of this arrangement, it’s not harmless. The cited article describes reported abusive conditions for even the few hundred people held there.

Kohlenberger’s third point:

The migration issue is increasingly dominated by false reporting, sometimes with considerable effects. Not only in terms of the interpretation of the court ruling of the Spanish Supreme Court on "hot returns", which seems to have triggered this movement in the first place - the reactions of incumbent EU politicians, probably out of domestic political calculation, also show this: Ceuta is not part of the Schengen area, so an onward journey of the migrants without further controls was therefore excluded from the outset; the "Schengen Agreement" cannot be unilaterally "terminated", as Meloni believes, because it is now binding EU law; newly arriving migrants would not fall into Spain's current regularization offensive - and so on.

These are important lessons that should be learned from the acute crisis for the further positioning of European migration policy. In any case, only one and a half months after the new European asylum rules came into force, they did not pass the first stress test. [emphasis added]

Her original Facebook post:

Notes:

(1) Spain deploys troops as tens of thousands cross Ceuta border. Channel 4 News YouTube channel. 07/31/2026. <https://youtu.be/47EBP1i1XLc?si=v_waGYCKFYbN5Msj> (Accessed: 2026-08-01).

(2) Editors (2026): What is Ceuta? Encyclopedia Britannica 07/31/2026. <https://www.britannica.com/question/What-is-Ceuta> (Accessed: 2026-01-08).

(3) Why is Ceuta a migration flashpoint and how were so many people able to cross from Morocco? Guardian 07/31/2026. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/31/ceuta-spain-eu-border-africa> (Accessed: 2026-01-08).

(4) Rieger, Bernd (2026): What impact will the new EU asylum law CEAS really have? DW News 06/12/2026. <https://www.dw.com/en/eu-asylum-law-ceas-germany-deportation-migration/a-77508144> (Accessed: 2026-01-08).

(5) Giuffrida, Angela & Rankin, Jennifer (2026): Italian MEP suggests government wants to ‘hide truth’ about Albania migrant centre. Guardian 06/30/2026. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/30/italy-mep-government-truth-migrant-detention-centre-albania> (Accessed: 2026-01-08).