Ceuta Residents Feel Abandoned Amid Fears of New Migrant Surge, Journalist Reports

In Ceuta, a unique Spanish enclave nestled in North Africa and bordering Morocco, there is growing frustration among residents. They believe their government isn’t taking adequate steps to avert another massive influx of migrants similar to the one on July 30, when about 70,000 people surged into the city. This sentiment was shared by Javier Negre, a conservative journalist in Spain, during a conversation with News Media.

“People here are despondent,” Negre shared in the interview, reflecting the collective anxiety of Ceuta’s residents. “Their political leanings—left or right—don’t seem to matter. Living in Ceuta these days has become exceedingly difficult,” he remarked, capturing the shared frustration of the populace.

Negre highlighted that citizens have expressed serious concerns over reported incidents of crime linked to the influx, including instances of robbery and attempted sexual assault. “The migrants, many of whom are living on the streets, have instilled fear among the local population,” he added, painting a sobering picture of the current situation.

He emphasized the urgent need for effective immigration policies both within Spain and across Europe. “It’s crucial for our governments to control illegal immigration,” Negre urged. “Citizens, who dutifully pay taxes to access social services like healthcare and education, are feeling the strain. These essential infrastructures—hospitals, schools, universities—are being overwhelmed, which feels profoundly unfair to the Spanish taxpayers,” he stated.

The residents who reportedly spoke to Negre seemingly echoed comments from Juan Jesús Vivas, Ceuta’s mayor-president. Speaking during an extraordinary session of the European Parliament’s Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs, Vivas said the migrant rush put public safety and public health at risk and threatened to collapse the city’s immigration infrastructure.

“Furthermore, the morale of Ceuta’s residents is severely affected. Our population feels sad, helpless, uneasy, fearful and worried — and with good reason. It is inevitable to wonder whether this will happen again, and if that next time will be the definitive plunge into the abyss, causing us to cease being what we are: Spain and Europe,” Vivas said.

Following a circulation of social media messages in Morocco calling for migrants to again rush the Spanish enclave on Aug. 15, both Spain and Morocco beefed up security on their respective sides of the border, in addition to the maritime barriers Spain put up after the initial incident saw migrants swim ashore.

But, Negre said Moroccan officials told him that the increased measures are not enough.

“I know that today the Spanish government and the Moroccan government, they say that they are going to put more police, but it’s not enough,” Negre said.

“We need more police,” he continued. “We need to have more border security because people don’t understand why they’re paying taxes, why they’re giving a lot of money to the state if they can’t block the frontier to these illegal migrants that they are not escaping from a war or a difficult situation,” Negre told News Media.

Negre criticized Spain’s government, led by left-wing Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his party, Vox. The journalist pointed to Spanish media reports arguing that Sánchez’s frosty relationship with Morocco may have contributed to the migration incident.

“Pedro Sánchez, who is involved in a lot of scandals of corruption, he went to Algeria, and there are some rumors that maybe the king of Morocco try to promote this illegal invasion to tell the Spanish government, ‘hey, take it easy,'” Negre explained.

Sánchez traveled to Algeria on July 20, 10 days before the migration incident, in an effort to restore diplomatic ties after a freeze in the countries’ relationship over Morocco’s claim to the Western Sahara.

Western Sahara, a desolate region in northwest Africa, has long been the focus of hostile relations between Algeria and Morocco. In 2020, the U.S. officially recognized Morocco’s claim of sovereignty over the region.

While Spain does not officially recognize that claim, Sánchez did endorse Morocco’s autonomy plan for the region, which proposes limited self-governance under Moroccan sovereignty to be the “most serious, realistic, and credible basis” for resolving a long-standing dispute between Morocco and Algeria over the territory.

Sánchez revealed his decision in a March 2022 letter to Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, a letter he sent less than a year after another migrant influx from Morocco into Ceuta. During that May 2021 incident, Moroccan border guards appeared to stand down while 10,000 people flooded into Ceuta from the African nation.

While Moroccan officials denied they instructed border guards to stand down, the European Parliament passed a resolution condemning Morocco for the incident, citing statements from Morocco’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs acknowledging that the incident was retaliation for Spain treating the leader of a Western Saharan rebel group at a Spanish hospital.

Negre also took aim at European leadership writ large, contrasting the European Parliament with President Donald Trump.

“Europe is going really bad with illegal immigration, with the open frontiers, completely opposite as the politics of President Trump with border security and deporting all the illegal migrants,” he told News Media, while praising Trump’s proposed legislation to require voter identification, the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, known as the SAVE Act.

News Media contacted the governments of Spain, Ceuta, Morocco and Algeria for further comment.