In September 2024, a court in Ceuta partially upheld the appeal filed by an Algerian citizen who had been intercepted “while attempting to enter by swimming” into the autonomous city and then handed over to Moroccan authorities – what is known as a hot return. The Ceuta court ruled in favor of this person, and later so did the Andalusian High Court of Justice and the Supreme Court. The latter issued its ruling on June 29, although its decision was not made public until July 8. Today, three weeks later, the autonomous city is experiencing an “extremely serious” situation due to the arrival of hundreds of immigrants swimming in recent days.
The High Court pointed out that the border rejection of people trying to enter Spain – commonly known as hot returns – which is authorized in a provision of the Immigration Law, is not, however, applicable to immigrants who try to arrive by swimming and are intercepted at sea. The Supreme Court considers, as the two lower courts did before, that border rejection is only applicable when those coming try to overcome “established border containment elements, such as fences,” and that these are not present at sea.
Although the Ceuta government did not want to explicitly link yesterday the flood of arrivals with the Supreme Court ruling, the city’s president, Juan Jesús Vivas, did call for an amendment to the Immigration Law so that hot returns can be executed in cases of swimming entries. “If someone knows that if they arrive by sea they will be immediately rejected, they won’t try,” the leader said yesterday.
Sources familiar with the matter point out that there are various factors that may have triggered the flood of arrivals. One is that Supreme Court ruling, but also the weather conditions in recent days: there has been heavy fog in Ceuta that makes visibility difficult for agents. It may also contribute, they note, the spread through social networks of information encouraging attempts to cross – for example, a video circulates of an immigrant revealing the route followed to reach Ceuta by swimming.
Other sources indicate that to analyze the reasons behind the flood of arrivals it is necessary to know the majority nationality of those trying to enter, distinguishing whether they are sub-Saharan or Moroccan. In any case, they do not believe the trigger is comparable to the one in May 2021 that caused another major migration crisis in Ceuta due to swimming arrivals – at that time, a disagreement had just occurred between Spain and Morocco after the reception in a Logroño hospital of the leader of the Polisario Front, Brahim Gali.
Vivas estimated yesterday that 1,500 people have arrived swimming in Ceuta in recent days. The number is comparable to the number of immigrants who reached the autonomous city between January and July 2025 by “land route” – this classification includes, according to the Ministry of the Interior, arrivals on foot and by swimming. In those seven months of last year, 1,452 people arrived in Ceuta by land route. In 2026, up to July 15, 2,826 had already accessed by swimming or on foot, to which the 1,500 from recent days must now be added.
“If the intensity of the flow of entries is maintained, soon we could be at figures similar to those in the May 2021 episode,” Vivas warned yesterday. Interior does not reflect in its statistics how many arrived then, but the Government Delegation in Ceuta estimated them at 5,000 immigrants.
