FACT FOCUS: Migrant crossing in Spain's Ceuta breeds unsubstantiated claims

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — A crisis at the border in Ceuta, a tiny Spanish territory in North Africa, has resulted in unsubstantiated claims about Spain’s migration policies and the causes of the border surge at the territory’s frontier with Morocco.

Some 60,000 migrants entered Ceuta from Morocco on Thursday and Friday, local Spanish officials have said, equivalent to 70% of the city’s regular population. At least 57 migrants died attempting the crossing either by drowning while trying to swim to Spanish territory or in a stampede.

Here’s a look at the facts.

CLAIM: Spain’s move to legalize the status of immigrants caused the rush.

THE FACTS: Spain’s government is carrying out an amnesty for immigrants without residency permits who could prove they had been living in the country for at least five months and arrived before Jan. 1, 2026. Over 1 million people applied before the window closed at the end of last month.

Critics, including U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration, say that the amnesty sparked the rush to the Ceuta border by sending the message that Spain is lenient on migrants.

Spain's “weak law, bad management” was to blame, Trump said Friday. The U.S. State Department doubled down in a post on X, saying that “this unacceptable incident is the direct result of the Spanish Government’s deliberate efforts to enable and facilitate mass illegal migration into Europe.”

Spain's government strongly rejects that premise, saying that criminal gangs were behind the border crisis. Madrid has tried to maintain a hard line on illegal attempts to cross its borders while encouraging orderly arrivals of workers, who the government says are needed to keep up the country's strong economy.

Poverty and youth unemployment are high in neighboring Morocco, particularly away from coastal cities that have experienced some development in recent years. Gen Z-led protests last year called for social justice and better public services. The inequality has prompted many young Moroccans to attempt to leave for Europe in search of better economic opportunities.

Still, it isn’t fully clear what caused the sudden surge in crossings at Ceuta.

CLAIM: A misconstrued Spanish court ruling is to blame.

THE FACTS: Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has pushed the argument that a recent ruling by Spain's Supreme Court had been intentionally misconstrued by migrant smugglers to convince thousands of people to cross the border by swimming around the border fence.

That court ruling said migrants arriving by sea could not be summarily deported without due process, unlike those who cross by land or climb the border fence because they had not crossed a physical barrier.

Migration and human rights activists said social media posts and misinformation helped fuel the departures.

“The departures were promoted in a certain way. At first, people were hearing that the border was open, and then everyone started referring to the Spanish court decision. That contributed to the crossings,” said Achraf Maimouni, a human-rights activist.

CLAIM: Morocco intentionally opened the border

THE FACTS: In 2021, more than 8,000 people crossed the Ceuta border when Moroccan border officials dropped their guard, sparking a diplomatic crisis between the neighbors.

The move was broadly interpreted as retaliation from Morocco for Spain’s decision to allow a pro-independence leader from the disputed Western Sahara region to receive medical treatment at a Spanish hospital. Sánchez defused the crisis when he shifted his country’s long-standing position on Western Sahara, and met with Moroccan King Mohammed VI the following year.

In this most recent crisis, which dwarfs the one five years prior, the first response by Spanish officials was to say that Moroccan counterparts were working alongside them to stop the rush. Whatever those efforts were, they proved ineffective as migrants kept steadily coming from all over Morocco to the border, with thousands breaching the frontier on Thursday and Friday.

An Associated Press freelance photographer witnessed Moroccan gendarmes standing aside with their arms crossed on Thursday as thousands of migrants passed near them into Ceuta. Eventually, Moroccan security forces stepped up, employing tear gas, batons and water cannons to disperse large groups of migrants reaching the border on Friday.

Morocco’s ambassador to Spain expressed hope that those who crossed from Morocco into the Spanish territory would return, saying the situation had unfolded against Rabat’s wishes.

Yet Morocco has never officially recognized Ceuta and its sister Spanish enclave, Melilla, as European territories even though they have been under Spanish control for centuries.

CLAIM: The surge in migrants is payback for Sánchez’ position on Iran and Gaza.

The mass crossing has given birth to conspiracy theories online, including one take that sees Trump and Israel encouraging a friendly Morocco to let this happen as payback for Spain's position on immigration and its harsh criticism of their joint attack on Iran and the Israeli military campaign in Gaza.

THE FACTS: Trump has for months raged against Spain and recently threatened to end trade with the European country, and the Israeli leader has accused Spain of waging a diplomatic war against his country. But there is no evidence to support claims of a U.S. or Israeli hand in the Ceuta crisis.

CLAIM: Those who crossed will end up in mainland Europe.

THE FACTS: The Ceuta crossings have led to political leaders in Italy, France and other EU nations to take measures that appear aimed at stopping people from entering their countries. Premier Giorgia Meloni threatened to suspend Italy’s open-border Schengen agreement with Spain even though Italy doesn’t share a border with Spain and receives many more migrants crossing the Mediterranean than Spain. French Interior Minister Laurent Nunez said France would also strengthen border checks with Spain.

While the influx is clearly unmanageable for the city of Ceuta, the impact of the crossing will mostly be limited to the Spanish territory and have limited impact on mainland Spain.

By Friday evening, the majority of migrants had already returned to Morocco voluntarily, Spanish authorities said. Those who remain in Ceuta will either be sent back eventually or face a long period of legal limbo and possibly spells in government-run centers.

EU migration commissioner Magnus Brunner posted on X that “not a single person has crossed to mainland EU” and that the Schengen Borders Code already includes special border checks for people traveling from Ceuta and Melilla.

Find AP Fact Checks here: https://apnews.com/APFactCheck.

Belongings left behind by migrants float in the sea after they crossed from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Friday, July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Sempere)

Migrants return to Morocco from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Friday, July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Sempere)

A migrant runs from Spanish police officers as they cordon off access to the beach for people crossing from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Friday, July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Antonio Sempere)

Migrants rest outside the Temporary Center for Immigrants (CETI) after crossing from Morocco into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta, Friday, July 31, 2026. CETI is the Spanish acronym for the migrant reception center. (AP Photo/Antonio Sempere)

DUXBURY, Mass. (AP) — Jurors walked through the Massachusetts home where Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children, a rare visit Friday that let them see firsthand the place where an outwardly ordinary family life unraveled into tragedy.

After being driven past two businesses relevant to the narrative of the January 2023 killings, jurors were escorted in groups of six to view the inside of the house, including the basement where the children died. During the roughly 40-minute visit, the jury also saw the yard where Clancy was found after jumping from a second-story window.

Journalists were kept away by a police barricade, but court officers could be seen through the trees escorting jurors to and from the bus along the site of the Clancy family’s former driveway. The home now has a new owner.

Clancy herself did not attend the visit to the home, which she hasn't seen since the day of the killings. Her lawyers argue she was in the grip of postpartum psychosis, a rare mental illness linked to the stress, sleep deprivation and hormonal changes that follow childbirth.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This story includes discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know needs help, the national suicide and crisis lifeline in the U.S. is available by calling or texting 988.

Jurors in U.S. criminal cases often are expressly told not to visit the scene of the events in question. There are a number of rationales for not doing so — among other things, the site may have changed in the interim between an alleged crime and a trial.

But courts sometimes allow juries to make a supervised excursion as a group, for reasons that can include assessing distances or features that aren’t thought to come across fully in photos.

Such excursions have happened in a number of high-profile cases, including the 2023 murder trial of South Carolina attorney Alex Murdaugh, the 2022 sentencing trial of Parkland, Florida, school shooter Nikolas Cruz, the 2015 Massachusetts murder trial of former New England Patriots player Aaron Hernandez and the 1995 murder trial of O.J. Simpson.

Jurors in Clancy's trial retraced the route her then-husband, Patrick Clancy, took when she asked him to pick up takeout food and medicine for daughter Cora on the night of the killings. He returned to find the children dead and his then-wife badly injured and bleeding in the yard.

The panel was driven past the restaurant — about 5.5 miles (9 kilometers) from the family’s former home in Duxbury, a town south of Boston — and the pharmacy, about a mile (1.6 km) from the house.

Prosecutors say the errands were a ruse to get her husband out of the house. They say Lindsay Clancy, a former labor and delivery nurse, acted intentionally and is criminally responsible for the deaths of children Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months.

Her lawyers don't dispute that she killed the children, but they say she had bipolar disorder and her condition worsened while she was on antidepressants prescribed after the birth of her third child. She believed a voice was telling her to “kill the children so you can kill yourself,” according to her lawyers.

Lindsay Clancy remains paralyzed from the waist down after using multiple methods to try to end her life that night.

If convicted of murder, she faces life in prison without parole. If found not guilty due to a lack of criminal responsibility, she would be committed to a state mental health facility.

Defendant Lindsay Clancy awaits the start of proceedings during her murder trial at Plymouth Superior Court in Plymouth, Mass., on Thursday, July 30, 2026. (CJ Gunther/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool) CORRECTION: Source is The Boston Herald, not The Boston Globe.

Kevin Reddington, defense attorney gestures as he cross-examines a witness during the murder trial for Lindsay Clancy at Plymouth Superior Court in Plymouth, Mass., on Thursday, July 30, 2026. (CJ Gunther/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)

Duxbury fire department Capt. PJ Hussey points to photograph as he testifies during the murder trial for Lindsay Clancy at Plymouth Superior Court in Plymouth, Mass., on Thursday, July 30, 2026. (CJ Gunther/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)

Defendant Lindsay Clancy listens during her murder trial at Plymouth Superior Court in Plymouth, Mass., on Thursday, July 30, 2026. (CJ Gunther/The Boston Herald via AP, Pool)

A police barricade stands outside the former home of Lindsay Clancy in Duxbury, Mass., on Friday, July 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Rodrique Ngowi)