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By Jordan King and Steve Mollman
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Italy has sought to restrict its open-border arrangements with Spain after thousands of migrants streamed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, which borders Morocco, in an unfolding crisis that has left at least 67 dead, according to Spanish authorities.
Ceuta regional government head Juan Jesús Vivas said on Friday that some 60,000 migrants had crossed into the enclave in the past 24 hours.
“The situation that Ceuta is going through is absolutely unsustainable,” Vivas told journalists.
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Spanish authorities later said the surge was beginning to reverse, estimating that around 48,300 of the roughly 50,000 people who crossed into Ceuta since Thursday morning had returned to Morocco, many voluntarily.
Spanish authorities said crossings into Ceuta had fallen to near zero overnight into Saturday, as security forces maintained a reinforced presence along the border.
Spain's government representative in the enclave initially said 57 bodies had been recovered on the Spanish side of the border and warned there could be additional casualties on the Moroccan side. By Saturday, Spanish authorities said the death toll had risen to at least 67 after some migrants drowned and others were crushed while trying to climb the breakwater and border fence.
Newsweek has contacted Spain's Interior Ministry, via email, for comment.
Large crowds of people were seen crossing border fencing on Thursday in Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on Morocco's Mediterranean coast that has long been a migration flashpoint.
Finnish Interior Minister Mari Rantanen backed Italy, saying: "Spain has completely failed to protect the Schengen Area's external border from infiltration. This cannot continue."
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What Is the Schengen Agreement?
Schengen allows more than 450 million people to travel across participating European countries without routine passport checks at their shared borders.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said images from Ceuta demonstrated that "uncontrolled illegal immigration poses a concrete threat to the security of Europe’s borders."
"Italy will not stand by and watch," Meloni said. "On illegal immigration, we will not yield an inch."
She pledged that her government would continue to defend Italy’s borders, combat human traffickers and pursue the repatriation of illegal migrants.
Italian Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani went further, saying he was "in favor of closing the Schengen Area to Spain" and described irregular and uncontrolled immigration as a danger to national security.
Finland's Rantanen said in a post on X on Friday: "All European countries must support Meloni's proposal. Countries that do not fulfill their obligation to protect the external border cannot be members of Schengen."
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Spain responded by summoning the Italian ambassador. Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares called Tajani’s message "unbecoming" of the foreign minister of a partner and friendly country, adding: "We expect European solidarity and not partisan demagoguery."
Albares said the events in Ceuta were connected to a court ruling—not the immigration policy cited by Tajani—and said the ambassador would be called in to answer for the remarks.
On Friday, French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said France would strengthen border checks with Spain, writing on X that he had activated the Rapid Intervention Border Force. He later said police presence on the border would be quintupled by Saturday, while aerial surveillance and train patrols would also be reinforced.
Pressure on Spain mounted elsewhere in Europe. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Spain should tighten its asylum laws, border procedures and border protections, arguing that "Spain must follow our example if Schengen is to survive."
The dispute escalated on Friday when Italy announced it was suspending Schengen free-travel arrangements with Spain. Italy's Interior Ministry said it had ordered the closure of air and sea borders with Spain and agreed with France to strengthen controls along the Franco-Italian land border. While politicians have referred to "suspending Spain from Schengen," the European Union's rules do not provide a mechanism for one member state to expel another from the passport-free zone. Instead, countries can temporarily reintroduce internal border controls under exceptional circumstances.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez pushed back against calls from some European politicians to suspend Spain's participation in the Schengen area, saying: "Solidarity and empathy are optional. Respect for European treaties and data is not." He argued that the migration crisis should not be used to divide the European Union.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said: "The images coming from Ceuta are unacceptable."
"We cannot allow anyone to come to our Union without abiding by our rules," she said. "Dangerous crossings must stop immediately. Smuggling networks must be dismantled. And returns must be swift, as our rules allow."
Von der Leyen added that the European Union was working on "additional operational support to Spain, including through Frontex"—the European Border and Coast Guard Agency.
Twenty-two EU governments also called for an emergency meeting of interior ministers over the crisis, arguing that the mass crossings challenged the bloc's external frontier and risked encouraging further illegal migration attempts. Spain separately asked EU leaders to convene ministers urgently while criticizing countries that had pushed for its exclusion from the Schengen area.
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Has Schengen Been Suspended Before?
European countries have restricted Schengen travel on several occasions in the past—although this means installing checks at internal borders rather than a suspension of another country’s membership in the passport-free area. Schengen rules do not provide for one member country to suspend or expel another.
For example, during Europe’s 2015-16 migration crisis, Germany restored checks on its border with Austria, while Austria carried out checks on its border with Slovenia. Denmark, Sweden and Norway also introduced checks at certain ports and bridges.
These measures were extended several times until the end of the specific migration-crisis authorization in November 2017.
Germany, Austria, Denmark, Sweden, France and Norway have continued or reintroduced various controls since. By 2025, each country had accumulated about 3,500 days of controls, according to a European Parliamentary Research Service briefing on the state of Schengen. The borders covered and intensity of the checks changed over that period.
During the 2015-16 migration crisis, some European politicians proposed excluding Greece over issues at its external border, but EU officials said no such legal mechanism existed and the country remained a member while other nations restored temporary checks at their own borders.
How the Ceuta Crisis Unfolded
Pressure had been building along Ceuta’s border for several days with more than 1,500 migrants entering the territory during the past week, overwhelming reception facilities and leaving hundreds of people sleeping on the streets, according to Vivas.
Thursday’s sudden influx overwhelmed border officers and prompted Ceuta’s regional government to request military assistance from Madrid.
Spain deployed the armed forces to support the Civil Guard, saying it would help "maintain security in the city of Ceuta."
Moroccan forces beat back crowds with batons and tear gas at the gates to Ceuta.
Sánchez and Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska visited Ceuta on Friday.
After arriving in Ceuta, Sánchez described the mass crossings as "a violation of Spain's territorial sovereignty" and said authorities would accelerate the return of migrants who had entered illegally while working closely with Morocco.
By late Friday, authorities said most of those who had crossed had already returned to Morocco.
Reuters reporters at the border saw migrants crossing back into Morocco through official crossing points and holes in the fence, with some saying they had been unable to find food or shelter in Ceuta.
On Saturday, authorities began installing a 500-meter floating barrier at the Tarajal breakwater, one of the main crossing points used during the migrant surge. Spain said the barrier would work alongside existing security measures to prevent people from swimming around border fortifications.
"Honestly, I don't even know why I came, and now I'm going back," a young Moroccan man from Tangier told Reuters.
The head of the association that represents Spain’s Civil Guard officers who police the border in Ceuta, Rachid Sbihi, said "the situation is absolute chaos."
"The border has totally collapsed," he told the Associated Press.
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Why Is This Happening?
Spanish authorities have blamed "people smuggling networks" for exploiting a Supreme Court ruling issued earlier in July that prevents officials from using summary border expulsions against migrants intercepted at sea while attempting to swim into Ceuta or another Spanish enclave in North Africa, Melilla.
The ruling requires authorities to process those cases under Spain’s formal removal procedure, rather than returning migrants to Morocco immediately.
Spanish officials have argued that criminal networks used the ruling to create the perception that migrants who reached Spanish territory would be allowed to remain while their cases were processed.
But activists in Morocco have pushed back against this narrative, questioning whether tens of thousands of migrants would have known about the ruling.
On X, Italy’s Tajani said "the Madrid Government's decision to grant Spanish, and therefore European, citizenship to over 500,000 irregular immigrants is profoundly wrong and encourages human trafficking."
Tajani was likely referring to Spain’s approval of a program in April that granted an initial one-year residence and work permit, along with access to Spain’s social security and health systems, to certain immigrants living in the country illegally. But it did not grant people Spanish or European citizenship.
Elma Saiz, Spain's migration minister and government spokesperson, said at the time the program was for "people who live among us, with sons and daughters who attend school with our children, who bring life to our towns and streets, and who, from today onward, will be able to fully enjoy their rights and fulfill their obligations."
The scheme offered immigrants without legal status a one-year, renewable residence permit if they had spent five months living in the country and had a clean criminal record.
The window to apply for the program, which was announced in January and kicked off in April, closed at the end of June. This means that migrants entering Ceuta now are ineligible.
Moroccan officials have offered little explanation for the sudden crossings.
Karima Benyaich, Morocco’s ambassador to Spain, said the situation was taking place against Morocco’s wishes.
"We have always prioritized legal, orderly and safe migration for all," she said.
Newsweek has contacted the Moroccan Consulate General in Madrid, via email, for comment.
How Are Migrants Reaching Ceuta?
Ceuta and Melilla are Spanish enclaves on the North African coast that border Morocco and have long been focal points for irregular migration. A previous border crisis, in May 2021, saw more than 8,000 people entering Ceuta over two days.
To reach Ceuta, migrants often swim from the Moroccan town of Fnideq, covering about 3 miles to reach Spanish territory. Others attempt the crossing from the nearby town of Belyounech, where the distance is shorter.
During the latest influx, migrants were also seen walking or swimming around coastal barriers at Tarajal beach, while large crowds forced their way through gates or breached sections of the fortified land border.
Ceuta at the Center of Spain-Morocco Tensions
Ceuta and Melilla occupy a sensitive place in relations between Spain and Morocco—Morocco does not formally recognize Spanish sovereignty over the territories and frequently describes them as occupied lands, making border enforcement there both a migration issue and a recurring diplomatic pressure point.
In May 2021, Morocco relaxed its border controls and around 8,000 people entered Ceuta over two days.
The move was widely interpreted as retaliation after Spain allowed the political figure Brahim Ghali to receive medical treatment at a Spanish hospital—Ghali is the leader of the Polisario Front, a group that seeks independence for Western Sahara, a disputed territory mostly controlled by Morocco.
Tensions eased after Madrid changed its position on Western Sahara in 2022, endorsing Morocco’s autonomy proposal, restoring cooperation along the border.
Some argue that Rabat uses its ability to tighten or relax migration enforcement to signal dissatisfaction with Madrid, with Haizam Amirah Fernández, executive director of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies, calling it a “pattern.”
“Moroccan authorities use human movements as a way of sending messages, which are often associated with unmet expectations on the part of the Moroccan rulers,” he told Spain’s public-service broadcaster, Radiotelevisión Española (RTVE).
Others disagree, including political science professor Ruth Ferrero, a researcher at the Complutense Institute of International Studies, who said it would be wrong to “interpret all the migratory pressure coming from Morocco as a political strategy.”
"Specifically, what we are experiencing these days does not seem, a priori, to be a Moroccan political objective,” she told RTVE.
Morocco has denied using migration as a diplomatic weapon. After the 2021 crossings, Rabat rejected a European Parliament resolution accusing it of using border controls and migrants to exert political pressure on Spain.
Trump and Vance React to Ceuta Crisis
President Donald Trump called the situation in Ceuta “terrible” on Friday, telling Fox News: “Remember that picture. That's going to be us in three years if the wrong side gets in.”
Similarly, Vice President JD Vance said: “These images out of Spain are an unfortunate reminder of the consequences of mass migration and the radical left-wing globalist policies that have enabled the Invasion of the West.”
He shared footage in a post on X and said: “Thank God (Trump) was elected and our country’s border no longer looks like this.”
The U.S. State Department also weighed in on Friday, saying in a post on X that it stood with "the people of Spain, and all Europeans" against what it described as an "egregious violation" of sovereignty and human rights. The department blamed the crisis on what it called the Spanish government's "deliberate efforts to enable and facilitate mass illegal migration into Europe" and said the United States was considering actions to defend Americans from the threat while standing ready to assist European allies considering similar measures.
It is important to note that reaching Ceuta does not give migrants unrestricted access to mainland Spain or the rest of Europe. Under Ceuta’s special Schengen arrangements, Spain maintains identity and document checks on travelers leaving the enclave by sea or air for mainland Spain or another Schengen destination.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Tobias Meyjes, Tony Phillips and Yannick Demoustier.
This article includes reporting by the Associated Press.
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