Though the vast majority of migrants have since returned to Morocco, roughly 1,100 unaccompanied minors who arrived before and during the influx – and cannot be summarily deported – remain, according to the local government.

Many are lodged in makeshift accommodation in warehouses or sleeping on the streets as Ceuta's reception centres are full.

Charities and residents' groups said they were trying to help children ​sleeping rough, along with pregnant women.

After initially stating that ​migrants should all be ⁠sent back, the PP's Alma Ezcurra told Spanish radio station Onda Cero on Wednesday that due process must first be followed to identify those suspected to be minors.

However, Isabel Diaz Ayuso, the PP president of the Madrid regional government, said the young migrants should be sent home. "I can't see Spain abandoning its children to their fate in another country," she posted on X. "It's ⁠inhuman, every country ​should take responsibility for its own children and citizens."

the us border patrol held us for questioning in separate facilities -- one for each one of us -- for 72 hours when i was 6 years old with immigration officers violently accusing each of us of lying and threatening us with legal action and imprisonment, but i scared so shitless that it all felt like 30 minutes. my sister and i have had to pay thousands of dollars for therapies over decades to overcome it; while my other siblings continue claim that it never happened, but my younger brother's sudden bedwetting immediately afterwards and my oldest sister's embrace of substances and behavior also make it clear that they repressed it.

that experience makes my heart go out to the children that are put in dramatically worse situations like this and i shudder to imagine how much harder they're going to have to fight to overcome this experience; assuming that they don't just repress it an act out instead.

at the very least, it sounds like the spanish are doing better than what the obama administration did.