The bourgeoisie’s cynical exploitation of migrants

On 30 July, 60,000 migrants, mostly young people from Morocco, surged into the enclave of Ceuta in search of work in the European Union. Their suffering must be a wake-up call to the global working class, which is itself a victim of exploitation and unemployment. The harrowing swim undertaken by these desperate young people resulted in the deaths of 77 of them. Upon their arrival, the exhausted survivors were met by overwhelmed law enforcement officers, who were immediately backed up by an impressive security deployment: units of the Spanish army, reinforced riot police, and the Spanish navy, in addition to the defences already in place along a fully militarised and fortified coastline. The forced return to Morocco was just as swift and cruel.

The acceleration of decomposition

This unprecedented episode is more than just another tragedy. This grim event certainly follows on from the numerous deadly attempts by migrants who, for decades, have been trying at all costs to reach European soil via the perilous crossing of a Mediterranean Sea transformed into a vast marine graveyard. But this time, the mobilisation was by no means spontaneous; the migrants overwhelmed the city in record time – an unprecedented feat – in less than 24 hours. All this can only be explained by the catalysing role played by social media and algorithms, and the ‘viral’ action of actors falsely claiming that ‘the Spanish border is open’. These actors were most likely state-backed, and it was, of course, impossible to trace them, as the accounts disappeared immediately as the event unfolded.

Migrants, victims both yesterday and today, are fleeing poverty that has become unbearable. The African continent, ravaged by the global economic crisis, by the spread and intensification of armed conflicts, by the chaos of disintegration and growing barbarism, is becoming unliveable. Inflation and unemployment are hitting this continent hard, as is the case in Morocco, where 37 per cent of young people are unemployed. The latest tragedy in Ceuta is, in this respect, the product of the same bankruptcy of capitalism; it is the tragedy of this same exploited class, that of the working class throughout the world, who have nothing but their labour to sell in the hope of making a living, all too often at the cost of the dangers of forced exile.

Those who attempted the journey in response to calls on social media risked drowning. They have been systematically pursued, hunted down and deported. The same is true on every continent, where barbed wire, walls and watchtowers are being erected – yet these measures are no longer sufficient. Spain, moreover, has very recently installed a 500-metre-long floating barrier off the coast of the enclave of Ceuta, subjecting new asylum-seekers to an even more daunting and deadly obstacle.

Other similar floating barriers, virtually impassable, have already been erected elsewhere, claiming further victims – for example, on the Rio Grande, where they brutally block the border between Mexico and the United States.

All states are either perpetrators and/or accomplices in these barbaric measures. And the fine words about the ‘right to asylum’ and ‘freedom of movement’ serve no other purpose than to mask the accounting-driven management, profit and control designed to uphold the capitalist order, serving exclusively the interests of the bourgeois state against the ‘undesirables’ who are desperately trying to cross barricaded borders in order to survive. In this respect, the fine words of the left and leftists, who take offence in the name of ‘justice’, serve to reinforce the iron fist openly advocated by right-wing and far-right parties, which call for ‘strengthening the borders’ in the face of the ‘pull factor’ to prevent ‘invasion’. Whilst the political rhetoric of the most democratic states and of the Left may appear more ‘humane’, it is nonetheless deceptive and deadly.

The French democratic state, for example, had sought to outsource the migrant issue to the torturers in abominable Libyan camps, while the EU itself continues to delegate the dirty work of repressing and imprisoning migrants to third countries in exchange for substantial payments and at the cost of numerous instances of blackmail: to Turkey, Tunisia, Morocco, etc. Britain itself signed a deportation agreement with Rwanda, whilst Meloni’s Italy had outsourced its policy to centres in Albania, and so on. What is certain, however, is that the left and the political movements fraudulently labelled ‘progressive’ have been no less effective than those on the right or the ultra-conservatives. On the contrary, they have been formidable!

In the United States, for example, Obama and Biden were far more effective than Trump and his ICE militia at deporting illegal immigrants, even going so far as to separate Hispanic children from their families. In terms of brutality, the Left is every bit as bad as the worst right-wing torturers, as was demonstrated in his day – with the EU’s approval – by the Spanish socialist Zapatero, whose security forces shot dead five migrants in 2007. That same socialist government had authorised the mass deployment of troops from the Foreign Legion and the Civil Guard, with instructions to turn migrants back in a ‘humane’ manner. This meant pushing migrants back to the Moroccan state, which took over by abandoning them in the desert south of Oujda, carrying out round-ups in the country’s towns, organising charter flights to repatriate them to Mali and Senegal, and transporting large numbers of people in ‘death buses’… towards the Sahara Desert.

Such barbarity continues behind the scenes and is only intensifying and becoming more widespread everywhere.

Vile exploitation

Today, whilst the aim remains to confine and corral migrants by hypocritically and despicably relying on third countries – in utter disregard for the lives of people in distress – the trend is towards using migrants more systematically and cynically as a geopolitical weapon. With utter disregard for human dignity, migrants are ‘objectified’, with states no longer hesitating to trade on their suffering to exert political pressure or destabilise rivals. It seems quite likely that Morocco has thus played a significant role in the current situation, with eyewitness accounts highlighting the ‘laissez-faire’ and ‘laissez-passer’ attitude of the border security forces. Moreover, this is not the first time that Morocco has openly used migrants as a bargaining chip against the Spanish government. In 2021, Spain’s hosting of the leader of the Polisario Front[1] – a source of diplomatic discontent for Morocco given the dispute over Western Sahara – was immediately followed by reprisals: 10,000 migrants then crossed the border into Ceuta and Spain!

Today, the Sánchez government is even more firmly in the firing line given its international political stances, particularly regarding Palestine and Iran. But this time, Morocco is far from being the only likely player, given the context and circumstances of the very sudden mass exodus on 30 July. Indeed, this tragedy is unfolding against a very specific backdrop, at a time when several countries wish to ‘sanction’ or carry out ‘retaliatory measures’ against Spain.

Firstly, Morocco – once again – is unhappy about the rapprochement between Madrid and Algiers. But above all, one must add to this Israel’s dissatisfaction with Spain’s recognition of the ‘Palestinian State’ and the Spanish government’s refusal to allow the US military to use air bases on its soil in Andalusia for military operations in Iran. Both Trump and Netanyahu have made it clear that Spain’s stance ‘would not be without consequences’… And the fact is that Tel Aviv and Washington support Morocco in its opposition to Spain, particularly since Morocco’s accession to the Abraham Accords in 2020, recognising its sovereignty over Western Sahara. Similarly, it is evident that associates of Secretary of State Marco Rubio are tending to question Spain’s sovereignty over the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, going so far as to point out that they are ‘geographically linked to Morocco’. Did Trump not want to “cut off all trade with Spain”? In one form or another,[2] everything suggests that the United States and Israel, with Morocco as their accomplice, have at the very least fostered the conditions that have, in a sense, led to “punishing Spain”.

But regardless of whether or not they played a direct role in triggering the sudden influx of migrants to Ceuta, one thing is absolutely certain: they immediately and despicably exploited this human suffering for political ends, revelling in the state of panic in Spain. Trump has ironically described the Ceuta incident as an ‘invasion’, boasting of his merits against bad actors should the Democrats win the forthcoming US elections, crudely implying that he would be the ‘sole bulwark against inevitable invasions’ in the United States. Trump also notes with satisfaction that the Ceuta crisis is driving a further wedge between EU member states. As for Israel, a telling example of its mindset can be seen in the remarks of its ambassador, Dany Danon, who, during the Ceuta crisis, accused Spain at the UN of “maintaining colonial enclaves in Africa”.

The member states of the EU are not to be outdone and have effectively laid bare their own rivalries by exploiting this tragic event in an equally despicable and inhumane manner for the sake of populism, fuelling the rhetoric of the far right and global disorder. Italy thus immediately distanced itself from Spain, calling for the “suspension of the Schengen Area”. France promptly “stepped up its border controls”, whilst Denmark, Finland and Sweden proposed “restrictions”. At the expense of migrants, each state has exploited the situation to serve its sordid imperialist interests, laying bare the ‘everyone against everyone’ dynamic and the growing rivalries behind a belated, superficial unity during the emergency meeting of ministers from the 27 member states (held via videoconference on Tuesday 4 August).

The deepening of capitalism’s historic crisis, and the process of decomposition that is rapidly undermining it, mean that all states are increasingly revealed for what they are: cold, lawless monsters. At the same time, the ruling class is using its own putrid fumes to turn it against the working class. It thus exploits fears to undermine class consciousness by turning migrants into scapegoats who must be repressed and driven out. Faced with this repugnant and barbaric rhetoric, the proletariat must turn a deaf ear and recognise that migrants are, first and foremost—just as much as the proletariat itself—victims of exploitation by a decaying and increasingly murderous capitalism.

WH, 7 August, 2026

 

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[1] Spain no longer officially supports the Polisario Front and has accepted Morocco’s ‘autonomy plan for Western Sahara’. However, the reception of its leader has reignited the long-standing dispute.

[2] This hypothesis can be supported by the precedent of the hybrid war waged by the Belarusian leader A. Lukashenko. In 2021, he attracted large numbers of foreign nationals (from the Middle East and Africa) by granting them visas, with the aim of pushing them en masse towards the EU’s borders to destabilise the region