Spain’s Migrant Crisis – Explained
Navarrette Nation Substack — The Explainer 8/1/26
Advisory: Americans are tired of opinions. What they want instead are clear and simple explanations of what they see going on in a world that seems to get more complicated by the week. In that spirit, the Friday edition of Navarrette Nation Substack is titled “The Explainer.” Every Friday, the one big story of the week, explained. Simple as that.
Critical Thinking At A Critical Time
Every Friday
610 words; 7 min
The first thing that grabs your attention is the numbers involved.
Last week, between 50,000 and 60,000 people – most of them from Africa – tried to cross from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta.
The city – which is autonomous, and yet still part of Spain – is located on the North African coast. It covers an area of just 7.7 miles, and its normal population is fewer than 85,000 people.
In other words, over the course of several days, more than half of Ceuta’s population swarmed across the border and squeezed into an area smaller than most counties in the United States.
As Spain sends the military to the border to try to keep more people from coming, and desperate migrants clash with Spanish authorities, the death toll has risen to 67. Many of the deceased have drowned.
Spain is freaking out, along with much of the European Union. Italy temporarily placed border controls on travel from Spain, while France ordered extra checks along the countries’ shared border. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has denounced the response, describing it as “selfish, polarising and unlawful.”
By Friday, most of the tens of thousands of migrants who had attempted to cross into Ceuta had been returned to Morocco. But it’s hard to find anyone who thinks the crisis has subsided. No one seems to believe that there won’t be another wave of migrants showing up in Ceuta in the days to come.
This story isn’t over. Are you kidding? It’s just getting started.
Here are 10 quick takeaways.
1. This is colonialism in reverse. The Spanish don’t seem to enjoy the feeling of being invaded. No doubt the native tribes of the Americas felt the same way in the 16th Century.
2. Conservatives in the United States who support President Trump relish the irony of the European Union experiencing anxiety over migrants. Nativism. It’s not just for MAGA anymore.
3. Some Americans have noticed that, in countries like Great Britain, France and Spain, anti-immigrant anger is surging. This episode helps explain why.
4. It’s legitimate for a country to worry about changes to its identity brought on by an influx of foreigners. Or is it? National pride is fine, but xenophobia can’t be excused.
5. Can the migrant crisis in Spain – and the anxiety it has wrought across the European Union – be seen as a vindication of someone who many Europeans detest: President Donald Trump?
6. Immigration isn’t a U.S. thing. It’s a global phenomenon. The cast of characters change, but the story is the same. Countries need immigrants. People fear immigrants. Same as it ever was.
7. Africans scare people. On a trip to Israel in 2012, I confronted Israelis about their shoddy treatment of Ethiopian migrants. Jews should be the most hospitable tribe of all, in light of history.
8. Speaking of Jews. One of the darkest moments in U.S. history was when Americans – blinded by anti-Semitism – turned away Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler’s horror show. What blinds Spain?
9. Many blame the crisis on Spain’s Supreme Court which ruled that migrants who arrive by sea can’t be deported without due process. Since when do the desperate take cues from judges?
10. Observers need to learn to approach stories like this with compassion, humility and grace. If you’ve been here, you know how serious a crisis like this is. If not, your time will come.
Pray for Spain. Pray for the migrants. And, while you’re at it, you might want to put in a good word for the rest of the planet – so that the stranger will always be welcomed.
There, that should explain things.
===========
Fresh Ink —
Ruben Navarrette
Nationally Syndicated Column, Creators Syndicate
7-21-26
SAN DIEGO — Anyone who has written about immigration for more than 35 years, and who has the scars to prove it, has earned the right to say: “I told you so.”
Those four words rang in my head recently as I read an article in The New York Times that exposed one of the three big lies of the immigration debate.
If you’re curious, the other two falsehoods are that racism isn’t driving the public’s anxiety over immigrants and that Americans have no problem with legal immigrants. Neither of those things is true.
The third lie, and the one that drives the Times story, is that there is any such thing as “sanctuary” from immigration enforcement. That’s never been true, no matter which party controls the executive branch.
It just seems true because both Democrats and Republicans have literally spent years advancing the lie for different reasons.
Democrats want to fool Latino voters into thinking they’re in their corner when, in reality, the last three Democratic presidents — Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Joe Biden — have all hammered immigrants, both documented and undocumented.
Republicans want white voters who worry about the browning of America to believe that Democrats can’t be trusted on immigration because they’ve supposedly created lawless cities where the undocumented can hide from the long arm of the law.
That’s silly. In 2026, everyone knows that the best way to hide from the law is to get a pardon by purchasing cryptocurrency from the Trump family. Republicans gave up any moral claim to being the “law and order party” when they showed they were willing to ignore the criminal syndicate operating out of the White House.
Alas, I digress. Back to the sanctuary myth. The concept of a “sanctuary city” — or, in the case of California, a supersized “sanctuary state” — is not real. It’s never been real. Beyond what might be described as “professional courtesy,” local and state law enforcement officers are normally under no legal obligation to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents do their jobs.
Just as ICE agents can’t be roped into writing speeding tickets or answering domestic violence calls. If the last 18 months of the Trump circus have taught us anything, it’s that law enforcement works best when everyone stays in their lane.
The Times article — titled “Trump Blasts ‘Sanctuary’ States But Many Still Aid Deportations” — notes that the Trump administration has “increasingly sought to punish Democratic-led states that have tried to curtail their cooperation with federal immigration agencies.” In fact, President Trump has said the idea of offering “sanctuary” to the undocumented amounts to a “lawless insurrection” that must be suppressed.
And you thought Republicans didn’t like the “I-word”, because they objected to the Jan. 6 rioters being labeled “insurrectionists.” Politics is where consistency goes to die.
But, as the Times article points out, the very states that the Trump administration is targeting — which include California, Massachusetts, Minnesota and New York — “already cooperate closely with Immigration and Customs Enforcement on tens of thousands of criminal cases a year, regularly turning over people charged with or convicted of serious and violent offenses for detention and deportation.” A Times review of the policies in the 18 states targeted by the administration found “extensive cooperation and coordination with federal immigration agencies when it comes to people convicted of serious crimes.”
You don’t say?
For nearly two decades, I have argued that the whole idea of “sanctuary” is a myth, a lie and a deception advanced by both parties to serve their own interests.
In a column for the Daily Beast in 2015, I asserted: “In the immigration debate, sanctuary cities are unicorns, mermaids and Bigfoot all wrapped into one.”
Seven years earlier, in a column in 2008, I referred to “the myth that there are all these ‘sanctuary cities’ in the United States where illegal immigrants can sip margaritas without fear of being deported no matter what crimes they commit.” I went to say: “In most cities in America, if an illegal immigrant is arrested and charged with a crime, that individual is almost certain to have an immigration ‘hold’ ordered while federal officials are notified. Often, the person will be deported.”
Part of this job is showing people how politicians in both parties are tricking them, so they won’t be conned anymore. I can’t make people listen, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t being tricked. All I can do is lift the curtain.
For nearly two decades, that’s what I have tried to do by exposing the lie about “sanctuary.” You’re welcome.