Spain clears Ceuta port camp as hundreds of Moroccans return home

Spanish police cleared the migrant camp in the port of Ceuta on Monday, shutting down a site the country's own National High Court had refused to close, and the people the camp held began going home. More than 300 Moroccans have returned to Morocco in the past two days, according to local newspaper El Faro de Ceuta — many after more than three months waiting in the Spanish exclave for cases that mostly end in rejection.

The camp was one of seven temporary reception facilities erected after an estimated 80,000 people crossed into Ceuta at the end of July. Together the seven sites hold around 7,000 places and currently house about 5,800 registered people, along with 3,650 minors in the care of local authorities. All are to be closed in stages under the government's plan.

The port site had drawn opposition from unusual quarters. Spain's Interior Ministry raised the port's security alert to level 2 in September, calling the camp a change to the normal operating conditions of a strategically important harbour. The Unified Police Union went to court to demand its suspension; the Audiencia Nacional refused to grant an interim measure. On Sunday, officers began dismantling 50 tents belonging to the Spanish development cooperation agency on the west quay.

The returns figure that matters is the longer one. Since the July arrivals, 14,818 migrants have gone back to Morocco — 14,180 voluntarily, 638 deported. Migration minister Elma Saiz said 6,113 people have so far been through the screening process. The article notes the returning Moroccans' decision may have been influenced by poor prospects of being allowed to stay and by the rejection of most asylum applications.

The pattern is consistent with what the journey itself now signals. Twelve people were found dead on a migrant boat south of Crete this week on what has become the EU's busiest irregular route, and this week Interpol reported over 260 arrests against smuggling networks in a coordinated global operation. Both data points describe the same market: the price of crossing has risen sharply, and when the odds of staying fall, the demand for a smuggler's services falls with them.

Ceuta's camp is being dismantled not because Spain built better reception, but because the people in it calculated that waiting was no longer worth the cost. Three hundred people went home over a weekend.