In the year 711, a Berber commander named Tar-iq ibn Ziyad crossed from North Africa with a reported 7,000 men and landed at the base of the mountain that still carries his name: Jabal Tar-iq (Tar-iq’s Mountain). The name eventually became Jabal-tar, or Gibraltar.
Tar-iq’s army was the western tip of a new Islamic empire that had just finished sweeping across North Africa. Spain’s Visigothic kings— the Germanic dynasty that had taken the peninsula from a collapsing Roman Empire— were busy fighting a civil war among themselves, and by some accounts one faction invited the Muslim invaders in to help settle it. The invaders stayed.
Within seven years, the Moors, as the Muslim Arabs and Berbers of Iberia came to be known, ruled nearly all of Spain… and taking it back took the Spanish nearly 800 years of grinding reconquest— a war that finally ended in 1492 when Ferdinand and Isabella took Granada.
Five centuries later, Spain has apparently decided it wants its invaders back.
In a ruling that surfaced in early July, Spain’s own Supreme Court decided that migrants intercepted at sea while swimming toward Ceuta (the Spanish exclave in North Africa) can no longer be turned back on the spot.
The judges reasoned that the normal rules by which Spanish authorities can refuse illegals at the border DO NOT APPLY because a swimmer never actually crosses a physical border. Triathletes— take note.
Word traveled fast. Last week, as you probably saw, roughly 60,000 people poured into Ceuta from the sea. Bear in mind that Ceuta’s entire permanent population is only about 83,000.
According to Spanish officials at least 88 people died either having drowned at sea or crushed against the breakwater.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called the crossings “an attack” and “a violation of Spain’s territorial integrity” and sent in the army, apparently without pausing to reflect that it was his own country’s policies that had opened the door.
Here is what Spain currently offers an asylum seeker:
- The state provides up to 18 months of housing and meals
- Plus a monthly cash allowance
- Plus reimbursements for clothing, transportation, and education
- Healthcare is free, even for those who enter illegally
- Legal and interpreter services are paid by the government
- Work permits arrive after just six months
On top of all that was this past spring’s amnesty declaration for migrants who entered illegally.
The irony is that Spain used to have a Golden Visa program to entice wealthy real estate investors. But they killed it.
People inside the Spanish government honestly thought it was a better idea to pay for illegal migrants than to collect tax revenue from wealthy foreigners.
None of this is an argument against immigrants. There are people of tremendous value and talent all over the world, and the nations that attract them have always prospered because of it.
America is the proof. Between 1892 and 1954, more than 12 million people came through Ellis Island.
They came to work, because work was the entire offer; there was no taxpayer-funded housing, and there were no cash handouts. Newcomers leaned on family, churches, and mutual aid groups which helped to support and find jobs for arrivals who had nothing.
Mass immigration was not without controversy back then, and the government eventually put tighter controls, rigorous checks, and strict quotas in place.
But the incentive structure was 100% correct: all immigrants received was the opportunity to work their asses off. Nothing more. And adopting American values and integrating into the culture was part of the deal. It was an honor to become more American.
The Cubans who fled to Florida highlight the same point.
After Fidel Castro’s communist revolution took over the island in 1959, roughly half a million Cubans came to the US over the next 15 years, most settling in Miami, often arriving with nothing at all.
Wealthy Cubans who had once owned successful businesses ended up pumping gas. Educated professionals cleaned houses. They worked hard to climb back up… because they understood better than anyone what freedom and hard work were actually worth.
Within a generation they turned Miami into the business hub of Latin America, and by 2004 US-born Cubans were already out-earning the average American household.
Countries are very similar to private businesses in a number of ways— and one of the most important ones is that both survive or fail based on the quality of their people.
The most successful companies in the world attract the smartest, most talented employees who are mission-focused and genuinely want to work hard to build innovative products and services. More importantly, they have a culture that prioritizes getting rid of bad workers.
Conversely, companies that hire lazy employees, elevate the incompetent, and who make it impossible to get rid of toxic employees, are destined for failure.
It’s the same with a country. If your policy is to attract the best and brightest across the world to come, work hard, and adopt your values, your country will do well. If you advertise free benefits to illegals, you’ll get exactly what you asked for.
Immigration by itself is not the problem. The problem is when there’s bad incentives.
Spain’s government now insists that most of the illegals have gone back home. But even if that’s true, the bad incentive structure still remains… so the invasion will only continue.
