All members of the Government have been very cautious in their words over the past two weeks to dissociate the avalanche in Ceuta on July 30 from the migration policies promoted by La Moncloa. However, this Thursday, for the first time a minister used the word “regularize” in his message to foreigners who intend to enter Spain irregularly: it was the Interior Minister, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, who warned them that “none of them will be regularized“. A statement that is also an implicit acknowledgment that a migrant regularization policy like the one the Government has promoted in recent months may lead more people to try to enter the country, trusting they will obtain papers in the future.
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From Ceuta, Marlaska wanted to insist today on the message already conveyed by the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, last Tuesday. “No person who enters or intends to enter Ceuta and Melilla irregularly […], certainly none of them will stay in Ceuta, none of them will go to the Peninsula,” Marlaska assured, and it is at this point that he added: “None of them will be regularized.”
Albares, two days ago, avoided adding that last qualification. However, the Ceuta president, Juan Jesús Vivas, who met with the Foreign Minister, did later convey that Albares had shared with him a message similar to the one Marlaska stated today. “The best way to stop it [the possibility of the avalanche repeating] is for everyone to lose the expectation that coming to Ceuta solves what they intend. No papers, no asylum. The only solution: return to Morocco. The minister shares this, he has told us,” Vivas said at the end of the meeting with Albares, referring to obtaining “papers,” which is another way of talking about regularization.
Last January, the Government promoted a process to legalize the administrative situation of those irregular migrants who were in Spain before January 1, 2026. A total of 1,174,978 applications were submitted, of which more than 600,000 had already been admitted for processing by July 2. The extraordinary regularization, which Pedro Sánchez’s Executive defended as one of the great policies of the legislature, was however rejected by the national opposition and, as Europe has indicated in recent days, it also finds little support on the continent.
A few days after the irregular entry of 80,000 people in Ceuta, 22 countries pointed to the migrant regularization promoted by the Government as a policy that weakens the defense of community borders – referring to a possible pull effect -, thus pointing it out as a factor that could have influenced what happened. The Executive, however, insisted – and insists – on attributing the avalanche to the action of mafias, until today Marlaska’s statement, discouraging future entries on the argument that they will not be “regularized,” inevitably leads to considering whether those who entered on July 30 did trust in obtaining papers.
More Immigration agents to process expulsions
On his visit to Ceuta, Minister Marlaska announced an extraordinary reinforcement of Immigration staff in the city, in order to speed up the processing of all files that will decide whether the migrants still in the city should be returned to Morocco or not. According to him, more than 500 international protection application files have already been processed – what is known as asylum, which will allow those granted it to remain in Spain -. And, he said, most have been “dismissed”.
On the other hand, asked whether the massive entry that took place in Ceuta on July 30 increases the terrorist risk facing Spain, the minister assured that “there is no terrorist threat risk” and, in any case, conveyed that the authorities remain “really vigilant”.
