Spain's highest court declares deportation of child migrants illegal

• The incident occurred amid a dispute over Madrid's decision to provide medical treatment.
• The court suspended the repatriation of a group of unaccompanied minors.
• The leftist government argued that a 2007 bilateral agreement with Morocco.

Spain's Supreme Court ruled on Monday that authorities had violated the law by deporting unaccompanied child migrants to Morocco following a mass border crossing into the Spanish exclave of Ceuta. In May 2021, over 10,000 people, including dozens of unaccompanied minors, forcibly entered Ceuta from neighboring Morocco by scaling a border fence or swimming around it, using inflatable rings and rubber dinghies as Moroccan border guards looked on.

This incident occurred amid a dispute between Spain and Morocco over Madrid's decision to provide medical treatment for the ailing leader of the Western Sahara independence movement, a territory occupied by Spain until 1975 when Morocco annexed it.

After legal action by rights campaigners, a court in Ceuta suspended the repatriation of a group of unaccompanied minors who arrived in May. Spain’s Supreme Court rejected the government’s appeal against this ruling, stating that the minors’ expulsion violated domestic immigration laws and the European Human Rights Convention.

The court emphasized that each minor is entitled to an "individual administrative procedure" and an "intervention" by public prosecutors before deportation under Spanish law. The collective expulsion of foreigners, as witnessed in this case, poses a "serious risk" of "physical or mental suffering," violating the European Convention on Human Rights, the court added.

Spain's leftist government had argued in court that a 2007 bilateral agreement with Morocco allowed for the return of the minors, citing the "exceptional circumstances" of the mass arrivals in Ceuta in May 2021.

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