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By Ellie Cook
Senior Defense Reporter
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Spain's foreign minister has pledged to send "every last person" who arrived in the city of Ceuta in late July back to their country of origin, with the fallout of the migrant influx still being felt in the small territory and in Spain's relations with its neighbors.
Roughly 72,000 people abruptly flooded into the autonomous city between July 30 and 31, prompting Spanish authorities to quickly deploy extra police officers and military forces to Ceuta.
At least 80 people were killed in the unexpected rush as some of those arriving swam around the city's border fence or scrambled into Ceuta by land.
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Ceuta, a part of Spain, is an enclave in northern Africa, bordering Morocco, with a population of just 84,000.
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José Manuel Albares said on Tuesday “every last person who has entered Spain irregularly will be returned to Morocco" and that Rabat, the Moroccan capital, was willing to help its citizens return home.
Albares was speaking from Ceuta, where he met with the territory's conservative leader, Juan Jesús Vivas, who has said that up to 11,000 people who arrived in July remain in the city. The Spanish government has said that most of the migrants returned to Morocco by early August, with around 2,000 people remaining.
Those fleeing conflict or persecution can apply for asylum in Spain, and any unaccompanied children will have a hearing with local officials about their home conditions, Spanish media reported.
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Vivas previously told European politicians that the incident amounted to an "invasion" and called for the "immediate expulsion" of anyone who arrived illegally.
Ceuta is one of just two land borders the European Union has with Africa, and occasionally reports surges of migrants arriving in the hopes of reaching Europe. The other is Melilla, another Spanish territory.
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the migration wave "a violation and attack of Spain’s territorial integrity" and blamed human trafficking gangs.
"Trafficking mafias took a self-serving interpretation of a Supreme Court ruling," he said.
Viral social media videos claimed that the border into Ceuta was open and easy to cross, and misleading claims about a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling encouraged the influx.
The court said in late June that authorities couldn't summarily return migrants arriving in Ceuta and Melilla to their origin countries without proper process if they arrived by sea.
The incident also caused a rift between Spain's left-leaning government and Italy's right-wing leadership. Rome started carrying out checks on Spanish travelers arriving in the country on August 1, shortly after the migration rush.
Spain then started spot-checking visitors from Italy, which Rome slammed as "incomprehensible and completely unacceptable."
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni's government is staunchly anti-immigration, a stance that U.S. President Donald Trump praised earlier this year.
Spain's government, which is comparatively pro-migration, said some European countries had "polarizing" and "selfish" reactions to Spain's biggest migration crisis in years, with Sánchez accusing some of the continent's governments of absorbing "fake news."
While Spain is part of the European Union and the Schengen Area —a group of countries on the continent that have got rid of their internal passport and border checks with one another—the free movement rules don't apply to Ceuta.
"Do not risk your lives, your money and your future on an adventure doomed to failure," Albares said on Tuesday.
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: John Fitzpatrick and Dave Siminoff.
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