Ceuta is America’s border warning

Spain is offering the United States a warning we would be foolish to ignore.

For years, Democrats have pursued an immigration agenda built around weak enforcement, mass amnesty, and the surrender of national sovereignty to globalist priorities. Americans who want to see where that agenda can lead should look at Ceuta.

Codify secure borders now or prepare to watch the crisis return under the next Democratic administration.

In recent days, an estimated 60,000 migrants — many military-age men — attempted to overwhelm the small Spanish enclave on the Moroccan border. They arrived by land and sea, swamping local authorities and producing deadly chaos.

This was not an isolated event. It followed Spain’s moves toward amnesty for illegal immigrants, effectively signaling that unlawful entry might eventually be rewarded.

Spain’s Civil Guard described the border as totally collapsed. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez rushed to the enclave, denounced the surge as a violation of Spain’s territorial integrity, and deployed the military.

By then, however, the warning was unmistakable. Ceuta has a population of roughly 85,000. A migrant surge approaching three-quarters of that number threatened to overwhelm the enclave in a matter of days.

Americans should recognize the pattern because we recently endured our own version of it.

During the Biden-Harris administration, the United States suffered four years of relentless border disorder. Record numbers of illegal immigrants crossed the southern border while the administration expanded catch-and-release, abused immigration parole, and allowed migrants to exploit an asylum system never designed to handle claims on that scale.

The result was a border that functioned less as a boundary and more as a processing center for unlawful entry.

President Trump’s return to office and his decisive executive actions have restored deterrence and operational control. But executive actions are temporary. A future Democratic administration could reverse them as quickly as Biden reversed Trump’s first-term policies.

Conservatives rightly insist on “no amnesty.” Honesty, however, requires us to confront a harder truth: Unless Congress closes the loopholes embedded in current law, America remains one presidential election away from another invasion.

The vulnerabilities exploited during the Biden years remain.

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The Flores Settlement continues to encourage family units and unaccompanied minors to arrive at the border knowing that current law may lead to their release into the interior. The asylum system remains vulnerable to economic migrants who use dubious claims to gain admission. Mass parole authority and catch-and-release remain available to an administration determined to abuse them.

Presidential resolve is not enough. Congress must harden the law itself.

The House Freedom Caucus has used its leverage to advance the reforms necessary to do that. This summer, we secured a House Judiciary Committee markup for Texas Republican Rep. Chip Roy’s Permanent Trump Secure Border Act, H.R. 9773.

The bill carries forward the strongest border-security provisions of H.R. 2, which passed the House in the 118th Congress with overwhelming Republican support. It offers Congress a vehicle to make Trump’s successful border policies permanent and protect Americans from the next open-borders administration.

Its provisions are serious and targeted.

The bill would reform asylum by barring claims from migrants who passed through safe third countries, raising the credible-fear standard to “more likely than not” and limiting asylum applications to ports of entry.

It would end the abuse of mass parole, require detention or prompt return when operational control cannot be maintained, and mandate safe-third-country agreements.

It would also close loopholes created by the Flores Settlement that encourage the release of families and minors, crack down on visa overstays, and expand the criminal bars to asylum eligibility.

These reforms directly address the gaps the Biden-Harris administration exploited.

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When Congress returns in September, Republican leaders must bring the Permanent Trump Secure Border Act to the floor immediately.

Partial measures will not suffice. Neither will another round of promises to address the border later. The left has not abandoned its vision of demographic transformation through unchecked migration. It is waiting for another opportunity to impose it.

Ceuta offers a preview of what can happen when government signals that borders are optional and unlawful entry may be rewarded.

America has restored order for now. The question is whether Congress will make that restoration durable.

The House Freedom Caucus has provided the blueprint. Republicans need to pass it.

Codify secure borders now — or prepare to watch the crisis return under the next Democratic administration. Our sovereignty, security, and rule of law depend on getting this right.