A migrant surge tests Spain's open policies | Hacker News Reader

A migrant surge tests Spain's open policies

economist.com

36 pointsandsoitis79 comments

It's a coordinated hybrid warfare attack. Terrible title. Or are the "migrants" Belarus has been shipping to Poland also a "surge"?

People need convenient excuses to build their inaccurate, personal “reality” and headlines are a perfect medium for that.

It’s a perpetual cycle feeding of each other.

It seems that dropping its own boarder enforcement, is a political lever that the Moroccan government sometimes uses in disputes with Spain. Is that what happened here? And these images of a flood of brown migrants, are useful to a lot of consent manufacturing projects, so are getting amplified?

Yes, a concerted campaign on TikTok and Instagram (hint hint) targeted these people with lies about the consequences of a supreme court ruling on immigration. This happened soon after Spain proposed an EU measure to break association with Israel.

Why the quotemarks around "migrants"? You think these people aren’t actually migrating from one country to another?

If you watch the videos or interviews with the “migrants”, these are clearly just agitators and looters trying to have a good time by harassing the Spanish. None of them expect to suddenly become Spanish citizens. It’s like flash mobs or organized looting we see in the US organized by social media.

Are they, or are they not, foreign-born people crossing a border to settle on the other side?

See my other reply to you, most are in fact not settling.

They are not staying at least one year in Europe?

Most have already returned voluntarily!

Ok so they are aspiring migrants.

Mostly peaceful aspiring migrants, just trying to make a better life for their children

Well… yeah.

By your definition a migrant needs to cross borders and successfully settle on the other site. What do you call the people being forced back or stuck in holding facilities and internation camps then?

I'm talking exclusively about this particular breach. 48000 out of 50000 have returned voluntarily. I don't think that counts as trying, so talking about success is a category error. This was a (deadly) flash mob.

> I'm talking exclusively about this particular breach.

Actually OP was talking about migrants crossing from Belarus.

I assumed their qualifier was being applied to this case as well. However I don't think there's any ambiguity about who are we talking about in this specific thread of comments.

There is also no ambiguity about them being migrants.

They were there for the fun of looting and harassing the Spanish at the direction of their government, not to actually settle. I might call them agitators, raiders or invaders, not migrants.

You believe these people to be Moroccans? Really?

What conspiracy theory is this that you’re pushing that these were not Moroccans? You think there’s some other large group of people who live in Morocco and were just ready to run into Ceuta within a day of this Spanish ruling?

> You think there’s some other large group of people who live in Morocco and were just ready to run into Ceuta?

Morocco, being close to Spain, is a well-known hub for migrants from all over Africa hoping to make it to Europe, yes.

Do you also believe that all the migrants attempting to cross the Channel from Calais are… French?

48000 out of 50000 in Ceuta's breach won't be migrating actually, since they've already returned voluntarily. Most either were agitators or have realised they weren't any better off on the other side.

Most have already migrated actually, unless you believe they were born in Morocco. And their intention was obviously to settle in Europe through Spain.

Stop sealioning, this is simply Morocco once again using its desperate young population as pawns in their underhanded "diplomacy".

Those people had no way to stay in Ceuta or travel onwards in any way, so this was just a deadly flashmob performance.

Of course the whole thing does double duty in arousing fascists and racists in Spain and the EU, for which the cui prodest list is quite ample.

Oh so you actually believe these people were Moroccans?

They're quite obviously Moroccan.

Obviously? Morocco is a well-known hub for migrants from all over Africa who try to reach Europe, but these ones are "quite obviously" Moroccan? What makes it this obvious then?

Is obvious because there is no way 48000 people on flip-flops and football t-shirts, without neither documents, nor money, would be allowed to happily step back into Morocco unless they are citizens.

Also because real sub saharan immigrants would fight tooth and nails before to voluntarily returning to Morocco. A place where many report been abused for months and years, and where they are trapped unless they pay the local mafias a small fortune to quit the place.

Flash mob is a perfect way to describe this, but if Morocco government was behind that, it backfired spectacularly with zero real gains to show for the at least 67 Moroccan citizens that died at the sea just to have a laugh at Spain.

Spain is seen as the victim and after past negative experiences has endured this with relative grace and dignity. Haters will hate, trumpers will trump, and nobody cares. Europe can say what they want, but the crisis has mostly solved itself in 24 hours, and the video of the Spanish agents running to comfort a lost little child crying alone, has made the entire country proud of their policemen.

Morocco instead is seen as the invader, has lost international trust and now it needs to bury many of their citizens including children. The families of the children drown probably think now that this has been a really stupid idea.

Until it's proven they want to actually move there, they cannot be called migrants. In fact, 90% of them have gone back to Morocco, so not much permanence to speak of

Unless they were born in Morocco, they are migrants. And why else would they move into Ceuta like this?

A soccer match would be a good first guess for a large surging crowd.

> soccer

What is that?

One of the common names for Association football.

As you very well know.

Geographically, they're not. Ceuta occupies a tiny corner of Africa. None of these people reached peninsular Spain and they are not migrants fleeing into Europe to live there.

They migrated to a different, country, that is part of the EU. Once they are legal there, they can move to anywhere in europe without problems.

Crossing a breakwater and going home 30 minutes later does not make them legal EU immigrants. It was an overblown news story that only have been believed by someone who has never been to the region, like so much news today!

Most of these people aren’t from Morocco, so they already were migrants before even making into Ceuta, which is Spain, hence yet another country.

Where did you hear that? Ceuta is entirely surrounded by Morocco and all of the people who moved into Spanish territory in Africa for 30 minutes did so by coming from Morocco. The confusion surrounding the geography there is... confusing!

I don't know about Ceuta, but it is true Belarus has been "importing" people and forcing them to storm the Polish border, in huge numbers.

It is also true that many times the Polish state has behaved inhumanely towards these people. But for sure their presence on the forester Polish-Belarussian border was an engineered hybrid warfare act, not some act of collective desperation, and it continues to this day.

The poor people taking part are, I understand, often recruited in poor places and told they will be smuggled into Europe. Then they arrive in Belarus and get sandwiched between Belarusian police (KGB?) and the border, told the only way out of, effectively, Belarusian captivity, is into Poland, through the barbed wire and border patrol/army.

It was indeed an attack.

The trains and other public transports to bring these people there were free that day for that specific destination.

Source?

I think this is a misunderstanding of having free public transportation during certain national holidays, and the perpetrators using such perks.

50.000 people all trying to infiltrate a country, can not be a random actionn. That was coordinated.

I was commenting about the free transportation question.

Regarding how such a flood happen, I don’t know, but someone should investigate it for sure.

Probably, but does not mean a state organized it. So if there was free transportation just for this day just for that route -> strong indicator of Morocco involved.

So, I a remain curious to the base of the claim, but so far it rather seems rumors.

Forgive the linked page, but I couldn't quickly find other profiles that posted this, since I don't use twitter

https://xcancel.com/visegrad24/status/2083153767164170326

I don't think a ragebait twitter profile counts as a reliable source.

The source is the video, not the profile. Are you claiming it's fake?

Are you claiming this video shows free trains for immigrants?

It shows people on cars and police waiving them on like all the other traffic. So possible they especially were set up for the immigrants, but no idea how one can conclude that from this short clip.

The upthread HN claim was that this "was an attack".

The Xitter claim was that:

  Moroccan traffic police keeps directing thousands of illegal migrants toward the Spanish border fence in Ceuta.

  This is a state-orchestrated invasion of Spain.

The video shows a small number of people on a small number of truck beds calmly going about a roundabout.

No visible attack, no proof that the people visible are "thousands of illegal migrants" nor of where they are or where they are headed.

You are very picky.

I hope that was irony?

Yes.

You don't happen to have a reliable source for this ludicrous claim?

Agreed. This smells like coordinated externally.

Whoever was the main one to have coordinated this should be punished. In case of Finland it was Russia to have coordinated this. In case of Spain, the most logical actor was Morocco. There should be sanctions that are rigidly enforced here. It should also be treated as a military attack against the EU by Morocco, aside from sanctions.

Please don't get the military involved in this. We have enough bs wars already.

Very easy pushback would be rethinking giving support to Morocco annexing west sahara and rather stick to the UN plan of finally having a referendum.

Well, this is certainly the case. Many migrants said that they were encouraged and directed by Moroccan police that informed people in advance, removed border controls and on the crossing site, encouraged people to cross.

It's an exaggeration to call this an attack - those people were not military, we not legally obliged, conscripted, or paid to do it - the are willing migrants, they actually want to immigrate and live in Spain. What changed is that they were given the opportunity, "they did it because they could".

In any case, they are all back now. It failed.

This whole concept of you having to accommodate people illegally entering, or in this case, storming your border is so alien to me.

Once a force of 60k men violently break into your country your duty is to start shooting, instead they had Spanish citizens have to bar their house doors and windows with couches and tremble in fear. Completely insane.

We are not in the business of mass massacres. Maybe the US should come and study how to deport 60k people in 24h whithout having to shoot anyone.

> We are not in the business of mass massacres.

Those are unarmed but aggressive foreigners. There are way to stop them entering your country in mass in a few hours without committing a massacre.

Western Europe has no problem using crowd control methods against their own people when they are protesting for good reasons (remember the gilets jaunes?).

But states like Spain are totally incompetent and corrupt. They won't hurt a few foreigners literally invading their country for the optics and do not care their own citizen get hurt as consequence.

In 2014 there was an attempt to swim over in the same exact place by just 300 people. Spanish police used rubber bullets to repel them and 14 died in the water.

More than 60 have died this time, even unoppossed.

Deaths could have been easily in the hundreds or thousands in the case of a similar heavy handed response, but our corrupt and incompetent forces have succesfully controlled and defused the situation in a peaceful and humane way within 24h.

I'm quite proud actually.

> We are not in the business of mass massacres.

Ridiculous take. Defense is not a massacre. They are almost all fighting age men, and they outnumber the fighting age men of Ceuta. They've caused enourmous damage to Ceuta. All of this could have been prevented if there were men with guns guarding those walls.

During Franco, Ceuta was guarded by a 1 meter tall fence made of barbed wire. No one dared to cross it because they knew what would happen if they invaded.

All that tough talk stems from fear.

That fear is fed with dog whistles like "fighting age men" and ample misinformation.

Ceuta is guarded by a 10 meter tall fence equipped with thermal cameras and noise detectors. This people didn't jump that fence, just swam around its end into the sea.

Ceuta is garrisoned by elite units of the Spanish Army, on top of border patrol and police. We have plenty of guns there, but choose not to use them on misled teenagers in swimming trunks and flipflops.

No lasting damage has been reported in Ceuta. This has been less violent than sport event celebrations.

Consider stepping out of the information bubble that weaponizes you as a supporter of mass killing.

Europeans voted to have open borders. Open borders include having 60k men come into the market zone previously known as "Spain" freely.

If only.

> It is also angering the rest of Europe

It is very important to note that you can not leave Ceuta without passport etc. It is not part of Schengen. This is a problem for Ceuta and Spain, and nothing more.

Think about that when you read what your politicians say about the incident. I have seen many lies and false statements the last few days.

The leaders should stand by Spain, not lie to their citizens about the situation to win votes.

That looked to me more like a coordinated invasion, but OK

So immigrants flooded the border, and then noticed they never actually left Africa? What kind of dumb is this?

They were aware, but there were rulings in spain before making it harder to push them back, so with missinformation they assumed once they made it in, they can stay. And then legally travel to europe.

> And then legally travel to Europe.

They could swim from Africa all the way to Europe. Being allowed to pick a plane or a ship without money or documents is a different thing. Most of them just returned home when their phone battery discharged.

Spain dropped the ball here, but I can not help but feel that this has been externally coordinated. That 50.000 people suddenly storm the borders is very very unusual - and also suspicious. That required external coordination really. It also required Morocco to be complicit here and the EU policy to just milk out taxpayer's money is not working, when countries such as Morocco sabotage things. Sanctions should be implemented against countries such as Morocco. Note that Finland also had sudden increases in migration; in that case it was easily traced back to Russia - that was easy due to proximity, despite Russia lying and denying this. In case of Spain, Russia is most likely not directly the one to have coordinated this, so one has to ask Morocco whether they have went bananas here. And Spain also has to stop acting naive - there is a reason the other EU countries are pissed off. Italy's response was best, even if populistic in nature - if Spain fails to retain EU policies then it should not be part of the EU.

> but I can not help but feel that this has been externally coordinated.

All those things are (externally) coordinated. We've been forced to believe by romanticized narratives that things like revolutions or invasions begins with one guy shouting and everybody following him and changing history but it is not. This behaviors only exist in bad history book or fiction.

Also isn't it strange that we've seen so many insurrections being started against trump in the last 10 years, but suddenly when he literally starts a war with Iran against the will of most of the population nothing happen?

My guess is this really show how all our "advanced economies" and sophisticated "democracies" react to various threats and risks.

We spend a lot of money on those threats and there is probably a ton of surveillance involved (satellites, etc.) but somehow there is not way to prevent 50k unsophisticated looters to literally take over your border on a summer day.

For it's own survival I would really advise Europe against starting a war with Russia. Because we can all imagine the pathetic debacle that we will have.

27 Jan 2026 20:42:12 UTC

Spain approves decree to regularise half a million undocumented migrants

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/27/spain-decree-r...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46786288

[ok]

28 Apr 2026 14:04:48 UTC

Spain Approves Regularization Process for Migrants Residing in the Country

https://www.envoyglobal.com/news-alert/spain-approves-extrao...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47934783

[ok]

31 Jul 2026 01:39:16 UTC

Ceuta, an autonomous city of Spain in North Africa