Three Lessons the U.S. Must Learn from Spain’s Border Fiasco

Over a month after more than 70,000 migrants flooded into Ceuta, a Spanish enclave on Morocco’s Mediterranean coast, chaos and social unrest are still widespread, providing lessons that the United States and the rest of Western Europe should not ignore. While liberals lecture about “compassion” and “kindness,” the scenes unfolding in Ceuta and throughout Spain show the ugly reality of what can happen when governments lose control of their borders.

The crisis began July 30, when approximately 72,000 people crossed from Morocco into a city with a population of only about 85,000. Migrants swam around border barriers, poured through crossings, and overwhelmed Spanish authorities in a matter of hours.

Ceuta President Juan Jesús Vivas later said roughly 100 people died during the initial rush, and more have died since.

Most migrants eventually returned to Morocco, but thousands have remained behind, sleeping on beaches, streets and industrial lots. More than a month later, the crisis is far from over – and is now creating social unrest throughout Spain. On September 2, thousands demonstrated in Ceuta, while protests were also held in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and other Spanish cities over the government’s handling of the crisis.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has faced particular criticism for his response. As the magnitude of the disaster was becoming clear, Sánchez began his annual vacation in the Canary Islands on August 1, even sharing a Spotify playlist of recommended summer music shortly before his departure.

The crisis may be unfolding thousands of miles from America, but it offers at least three lessons the United States should take seriously.

1. In the age of social media, mass border crossings can be organized almost overnight

The Ceuta disaster demonstrates how quickly the internet can transform migration from a steady flow into a sudden, overwhelming wave.

Weeks before the crossing, Spain’s Supreme Court ruled that migrants who reached Ceuta or Melilla by swimming could not automatically be subjected to the same immediate return procedure applied at physical border barriers. That nuanced legal ruling quickly went viral online.

An analysis of more than 1,100 Arabic-language Facebook posts found that misleading messages claimed migrants swimming into Ceuta would not be immediately deported. On July 30 alone, the exact same message was shared at least 215 times, including by accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers.

Researchers also identified more than 20 Facebook groups where crossings were being discussed and coordinated, including posts directing users into WhatsApp groups. After the July surge, dozens of groups were already discussing another attempted mass crossing on August 15.

As migrants successfully entered Ceuta, videos showing the crossings spread online, creating a feedback loop encouraging still more people to come.

Americans have already seen smaller versions of this phenomenon. During the Biden administration, more than 10,000 mostly Haitian migrants gathered beneath the international bridge in Del Rio, Texas, in 2021. Migrants said that WhatsApp instructions helped direct them there and avoid Mexican checkpoints. In 2023, another caravan of roughly 6,000 migrants marched through Mexico toward the U.S. border.

A border can now go from stable to overwhelmed before authorities have time to react.

2. Mass illegal migration is a disaster for migrants and local residents

Open-border rhetoric often reduces illegal immigration to sympathetic stories about people simply searching for a better life. Ceuta shows the far more dangerous reality when migration occurs on a massive and uncontrolled scale.

The migrants coming into Ceuta are not women and children or even families. They are overwhelmingly young men, many of whom have criminal histories. In addition to breaking the law, tens of thousands of them flooded into an area with too few resources to feed and house them. Tensions ran high, and violence was inevitable.

In late August, a group of dozens of migrants attacked a military vehicle carrying four Spanish soldiers with rocks and other objects. Residents have meanwhile clashed with police, attempted to block Red Cross food deliveries, and set migrant belongings ablaze.

The migrants themselves have also been victims of the lawlessness. Spanish prosecutors say there have been 23 sexual assaults against migrants since the crisis began, including nine involving minors between 14 and 17.

This is the reality of uncontrolled mass migration. Residents fear for their communities, police and public services become overwhelmed, and migrants themselves are left exposed to hunger, exploitation, and violence. Everyone loses.

3. Border chaos frays the bonds between free societies

The consequences of Ceuta have already spread beyond Spain.

Italy responded by restoring border checks on non-EU travelers arriving from Spain by air and sea, an extraordinary move between two members of Europe’s Schengen Area, where internal border controls are normally absent. Spain retaliated with controls of its own. Italy has since extended its restrictions.

In other words, the failure to control one external European border led to the erection of barriers between allied European nations.

Ceuta also raises the more troubling possibility that migration can be deliberately exploited as geopolitical leverage.

Spanish police union JUPOL accused Morocco during the initial crisis of using migratory pressure as part of a “hybrid warfare” strategy. Opposition leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo likewise argued that Morocco either “allowed or encouraged” the influx, although Sánchez's government says it has found no evidence that Rabat orchestrated the crossing.

The broader tactic is not hypothetical. Belarus has previously been accused by Poland, the European Union, and NATO of channeling migrants toward Europe's borders as a form of hybrid warfare. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has likewise threatened to “open the gates” and allow migrants to move toward Europe during disputes with the E.U.

Whether Morocco deliberately engineered the Ceuta crisis remains disputed. What cannot be disputed is that hostile or transactional governments now understand that mass migration can place enormous pressure on democratic societies.

Americans should understand it too.

Ceuta demonstrates that modern border security is about far more than fences and patrols. It requires governments capable of responding to social-media-driven mass movements, maintaining civil order when migration surges, and recognizing when America’s adversaries may exploit migration for their own purposes.

Under President Donald Trump, the American people now enjoy a secure border and robust deportation efforts. But Ceuta is a chilling reminder of the scenes that unfolded in the United States under the Biden administration – and a possible future if Democrats regain power.