The invasion of the Spanish city of Ceuta by tens of thousands of young, marauding Moroccans is, like Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, a tale of how the future could look unless one takes action in the present.It’s also a temptation to succumb to schadenfreude. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez harbors a special enmity toward Israel and never misses an opportunity to lecture the United States on its policies. The invasion of Ceuta late last week was, without a doubt, his just desserts.But while we should definitely heed the lessons of the ghost of immigration future that Ceuta offers, and never again imitate former President Joe Biden and open the border to another invasion, and while Sanchez deserves the blame for what happened in Ceuta, we should resist censuring Spain or thinking it got what it deserved, or, worse yet, suggest that Ceuta is not Spanish.
First, let’s see how the actions and words of the Spanish government led to the surge of Moroccans into Ceuta on Thursday, July 30.Last year, Sanchez announced he would offer an amnesty to an estimated 1 million immigrants residing in Spain illegally, which could easily have been a contributing factor that convinced over 70,000 Moroccans to invade Ceuta, which is on the coast of Africa, and borders Morocco.Sanchez’s minister of equality until 2023, Irene Montero, said at a public rally soon after the amnesty was announced that she wanted to replace conservative Spaniards with foreign-born voters who would vote for her Marxist Podemos Party.Additionally, the surge occurred after a recent Spanish Supreme Court ruling that migrants arriving by sea, unlike those crossing land or breaching border fences, could not be deported without due process. A flurry of posts on Moroccan social media platforms discussed the court decision just prior to the invasion.Sanchez blamed human trafficking organizations for spreading the message on social media about the ruling and encouraging Moroccans to cross into Spain. According to estimates by Spain’s Interior Ministry released Tuesday, a total of 72,000 invaders crossed into Ceuta. The Ministry says some 70,000 have already returned to Morocco, but that figure is disputed.But Sanchez clearly has a lot to answer for, and here is where the schadenfreude comes in. He is a very leftist leader, the furthest left in all of NATO, and he has repeatedly picked fights with the Trump administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.At the 2025 NATO summit, for example, Sanchez rejected President Donald Trump’s demand that all NATO members spend 5% of their GDP on defense. Sanchez called the move “incompatible with our world view” and has continued to criticize other aspects of Trump’s foreign policy, including U.S. military actions against Venezuela and Iran.In January, Sanchez joined Brazil, Colombia, Uruguay, and Mexico in a joint statement condemning the U.S. capture of former Venezuelan dictator Nicholas Maduro, while other leaders in Europe, including the leaders of Germany and France, praised the operation.Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez offers a speech at the University of Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, Monday, April 13, 2026. (Andres Martinez Casares/Pool Photo via AP)
