Does video show thousands of migrants entering Spanish territory of Cueta? What we know

On July 30, 2026, a video (archived) circulated online that social media users claimed showed thousands of immigrants without legal status entering the Spanish territory of Cueta.

The video circulated as reputable news sources shared similar videos of masses of people wading and swimming around a border fence between Morocco and Cueta, which is an autonomous Spanish city located on the northwestern tip of Africa on the Strait of Gibraltar.

One X account that shared the video wrote, “This isn’t a horror movie, this is tens of thousands of illegal migrants breaking into Spain right now.”

The video also circulated on Facebook (archived) and Instagram (archived). Snopes readers contacted us about reports of a sudden influx of immigrants to Cueta, asking if they were true.

We were unable to locate the original poster of the video in question via online searches, meaning we could not independently verify whether it was authentic (not digitally generated or altered). The footage appeared to have been recorded inside Cueta looking across its southern border into Morocco. 

Because we could not independently verify the origin and authenticity of the footage, we leave this claim unrated.

However, similar footage from the same location on the same date from reputable news sources such as The Associated Press (at 0:14), Reuters (at 0:05) and local news in Cueta (at 0:27) showed similar scenes. 

Corresponding circles mark common features between a video screenshot and Cueta on Google Maps. (@Inevitablewest, accessed via X, Google Maps, Snopes Illustration)

Why did migrants flood into Cueta?

Spain’s national public broadcaster RTVE reported on July 31 that 50,000 to 60,000 immigrants without legal status had crossed into Cueta as part of a huge wave of immigration that started the day before. RTVE reported that at least 57 people had died in the surge.

According to the Spanish National Statistics Institute, Cueta had a population of 83,567 in 2025.

Snopes contacted the Spanish Ministry of the Interior to confirm the number of people who had crossed the border into Cueta on July 30 and 31 and how many had returned to Morocco and await a reply.

RTVE, citing Spain’s federal government, also reported that more than 48,300 people had crossed back into Morocco by 6 p.m. July 31.

The influx of thousands of immigrants may have been spurred on by a Spanish Supreme Court decision that ruled that laws allowing Spanish authorities to return immigrants crossing the border from Morocco into Cueta or Melilla without considering their immigration cases did not apply if a person arrived by sea. (Melilla is another autonomous Spanish city on the North African coast.)

The Spanish Ministry of the Interior said in a statement that Fernando Grande-Marlaska, the head of the department, believed human traffickers were “exploiting” the court ruling to “encourage the flow of undocumented migrants.”

The people who attempted to enter Cueta from Morocco likely wanted to seek asylum in Spain. Cueta and Melilla form the European Union’s only land borders in Africa.

Before the influx on July 30, Cueta’s President-Mayor Juan Jesús Vivas Lara said (archived) on Facebook that 1,500 people had crossed in the previous 10 days causing “concern” and “anguish,” suggesting migration to Cueta was already on the rise.

Spain’s President Pedro Sánchez said (archived) on July 31 that his government would deploy physical barriers in the sea to deter further migration and keep a military presence in Cueta.

Sánchez added that his government would work with Morocco to facilitate the return of the migrants who arrived without legal status.

It was unclear at the time of this writing why border controls between Cueta and Morocco appeared to break down on July 30, allowing waves of people to attempt to swim to the Spanish territory.

For further reading, Snopes has previously investigated whether Spain instituted a five-year prison sentence for criticizing Islam or whether U.S. President Donald Trump threatened to invade Spain.

Google Translate provided translations from Spanish into English.

Sources