End of hot returns in Ceuta worries Spain's Guardia Civil: 'This is going to collapse'

A Spanish Supreme Court ruling bans turning away at the border migrants who swim to Ceuta and Melilla because they do not overcome any border barrier. The Guardia Civil no longer hands them over to Segarro and warns that its resources and reception centres could be overwhelmed.

Spain's Supreme Court has shut the door on hot returns of migrants who swim to Ceuta and Melilla. The Fifth Section of the Administrative Chamber has ruled that border rejection cannot be applied to these people because at no point do they overcome a border containment element, as happens, for example, with the fences. The decision, issued a week ago, has left the Guardia Civil in Ceuta without the tool it used daily: handing over those intercepted at sea to the Segarro gendarmerie.

The ruling sides with an Algerian migrant who appealed the administrative decision by which he was handed over to the Segarro authorities after being intercepted at sea by the Guardia Civil in November 2024. Before the Supreme Court, a court in the autonomous city and the High Court of Justice of Andalusia had already accepted that this scenario could not occur, because it constituted a route without procedure or ruling that omitted the right to legal assistance and to international protection.

## What changes at Ceuta's border since the ruling

Since the ruling became known, officers of the Maritime Service have been taking swimmers intercepted at sea to police facilities and then to migrant holding centres until their situation is determined. There is no longer any direct handover to Segarro. The Supreme Court does leave open, however, the possibility that in the future there may be containment elements at sea equivalent to the land ones. The ruling states that, since the tenth additional provision refers to border containment elements and not exclusively to land ones or specifically to fences, nothing would prevent the said provision from applying to those attempting to cross the border irregularly by overcoming such elements, should containment elements be established at sea to protect the border line. In other words, a barrier surrounding Ceuta or Melilla by sea would allow border returns to be carried out again.

What now worries the force is that this change of doctrine could trigger irregular arrivals and collapse police resources already saturated by migratory pressure. The Guardia Civil's professional associations claim that the Ministry of the Interior is hiding part of the phenomenon: while migrants used to take advantage of the area's summer fog to cross by sea, for two years now the attempts have been constant. On top of this, the force lacks the means and the suitable vessels to assist migrants, and officers often risk their lives rescuing people in the water.

## The numbers behind the migratory pressure in Ceuta

According to data from the Government Delegation, more than **10,000 rescues** at sea were carried out in 2025. During the summer of that year, the Guardia Civil counted up to **700 attempts** by swimmers to enter in some weeks. The current situation is similar. From January to June, irregular arrivals in the autonomous city of Ceuta by land have soared by **164%**, to **2,582 people**, according to Ministry of the Interior data. What is striking is that these figures do not correspond to those climbing the fences, but mostly to swimmers who reach the country via Ceuta's beaches. The Interior Ministry does not include all the attempts officers stop at sea, either.

With the new scenario, police sources warn that the situation could collapse at any moment. The Unified Association of Civil Guards is demanding clear protocols for officers stationed in Ceuta. Its provincial secretary in the city, **Rachid Sbihi**, believes the new scenario creates operational doubts for those serving on the maritime border and is asking for precise instructions guaranteeing their legal security. For now, the Ministry of the Interior has not commented. Sources at the department say the ruling "is being studied".

## The bureaucratic bottleneck ahead for the National Police

The feeling at the National Police is similar. The Unified Police Union warns that the Supreme Court's decision will considerably increase the workload of the Immigration and Border Brigades, worsening a situation it already considers critical due to the lack of officers and resources. According to the organisation, the obligation to process an ordinary return procedure in every intervention will miccionan more police reports, bureaucracy, custody time and administrative paperwork, threatening to overwhelm the units.

The police union has demanded that the department headed by **Fernando Grande-Marlaska** implement an urgent action plan including the immediate deployment of more officers, a permanent increase in staffing in Ceuta and Melilla, and authorisation of paid extraordinary shifts, in order to avoid the operational collapse of the units in charge of border control. It is a demand that both the Police and the Guardia Civil have been making for years and that the ministry has never answered, except when there were mass crossings of the border fences and reinforcements were sent to shore up public security.

## The route the Government did not take to reform the law

Experts in immigration law blame this scenario on the Government's legislative inaction, arguing it could have resolved the conflict in the last reform of the immigration law, which made it compulsory to distribute migrant minors among Spain's autonomous communities when one's reception capacity exceeds **150%**. "The Government urgently approved the decree amending the law in March 2025 in order to redistribute the minors. That would have been a good moment to change the wording on hot returns with express reference to arrivals by sea," they say.

Probably, the same sources continue, "the Government did not want to open the debate on this issue because of how controversial express returns always are." They add that there would have been no problem from a legal point of view, since the Constitutional Court upheld this special regime for Ceuta and Melilla in 2020 by rejecting an unconstitutionality appeal. That same year, the European Court of Human Rights found Spain's conduct in the returns of **13 August 2014** in Melilla to be lawful. With the ruling now in force, the ball is in the court of the Ministry of the Interior, which is studying how to respond to a scenario that changes the rules of the game at the southern border.