Liberals Are Ceding Ground to the Far Right on Ceuta Border Crossings

Liberals Are Ceding Ground to the Far Right on Ceuta Border Crossings A member of the Spanish armed services watches over migrants crossing the border between Spain and Morocco on July 31, 2026, in Ceuta, Spain. Photo: Adri Salido/Getty Images Over 50,000 people last week risked their lives (nytimes.com › morocco ceuta spain migrants) to cross the border between Morocco and Ceuta, the tiny Spanish enclave in north Africa, in the hope of making it to mainland Europe. The vast majority have already been returned to Morocco; fewer than 2,000 refugees remain on Ceuta and are, according to on-the-ground reports, in urgent need of food and shelter. Over 80 people reportedly died during the crossings, most from drowning. The crisis for those seeking to enter Europe through Ceuta last week, including those who have been sent back, has already been framed according to a putrid, far-right political fulcrum. As a wide array of responses to the situation on Ceuta make clear, a commitment to harsh border regimes is not the sole preserve of the far right. Once again (theintercept.com › kamala harris debate immigration), liberals and centrists who claim to decry the right’s anti-immigrant stances are themselves treating immigrants as a threat (theintercept.com › immigrants migrants language harris trump) to be secured against. For the international far right, images of thousands of desperate young African men entering European Union territory — little matter that Ceuta is, in fact, not on mainland Europe — has been fodder for predictable racist fearmongering and calls for extremist border rule. Far-right leaders blamed the crossings of the left-wing Spanish government’s extremely reasonable plans (theguardian.com) to regularize over 1 million undocumented immigrants who have already been living and working in Spain for at least five months. “It’s terrible. Remember that picture. That’s going to be us in three years if the wrong side gets in,” President Donald Trump told (english.elpais.com) Fox News, in a groundless attempt to use the suffering on Ceuta to his advantage. A spokesperson for the White House decried (english.elpais.com) Spain’s new immigration regularization proposal as “far-left, globalist policies.” Related From the Mediterranean to Mexico, Capt. Pia Klemp Believes Rescuing Refugees Is Worth Facing Prison Time (theintercept.com › mediterranean migrant rescue pia klemp) Meanwhile, conservative and right-wing leaders across Europe and the U.K. echoed similar sentiments, conjuring the old lie of an “invasion” confronting the West. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni proposed (x.com) Spain be suspended from the Schengen Area. A total of 22 EU leaders, including Meloni and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, wrote (politico.eu) a joint letter to the European Commission expressing “serious concerns” about how Spain’s decision to grant legal status to immigrants served as a “pull factor.” In response to these attacks and criticisms, several liberal and centrist politicians, institutions, and media organs have pushed back. Analyses in the New York Times (nytimes.com › spain ceuta migrants sanchez) and The Atlantic (theatlantic.com) have stressed, for example, that not one of the peopl