Swim or not swim: Spain's Supreme Court ruling and the Ceuta border

Ceuta, the Supreme Court and the art of arriving by swimming without swimming

Can a ruling requiring migrants to arrive by swimming be enforced when the border is crossed on foot? That is the dilemma that has once again shaken up Spanish migration policy. The geography of the Ceuta border crossing dismantles the conditions of the ruling with uncomfortable estimulante ilegal. Several voices with first-hand experience of the crossing point out that, at low tide, it can be crossed without swimming: the water does not even reach the knees along much of the route. Images released during the emergency showed people reaching the beach with dry clothes, while a diver searched an area that barely came up to his legs. The distance, according to one testimony from someone who has crossed that border many times, is under a hundred metres.

The signage nuance and the legal wildcard

The debate is not only physical but also legal. The text of the ruling includes a caveat about not crossing visible signage, which led to buoys being placed in the water to mark the crossing. But it remains unresolved whether that demarcation refers to the high seas or simply to the shore. Meanwhile, the suspicion that laws are stretched according to the convenience of the moment hangs over the whole framework. It is not a new theory: critics argue that governments use the rules as cover for decisions already made. In between, the dead. The deceased, it is argued, were killed by the very dynamics of the entry: stampedes, drownings, failure to provide aid. A detail the official account prefers not to embellish.

Out at sea, the ruling says, you must swim. On the shore, the low tide says otherwise. In between, there are still those who cross with water up to their knees, and those who never live to tell the tale. Spain's southern border remains a place where the legal and the physical regard each other with mutual distrust.