Rabat: A Spanish judge can’t dismantle the framework for combating illegal immigration and ask Morocco to bear the consequences,” a Moroccan government source said Monday in Rabat.

According to Agence Marocaine De Presse, the source emphasized that “the migration barrier did not collapse under the pressure of smugglers, but as a result of a Spanish court ruling,” adding that “Morocco, for its part, has always upheld its commitments and responsibilities.”

On July 8, a Spanish judge ruled that the arrival of illegal migrants by sea protected them from automatic return procedures, “which lie at the heart of our deterrence mechanism,” they recalled.

In the eyes of human smugglers and migrants alike, the ruling “simply granted immunity to illegal entry by sea.” That single decision gutted the deterrent element, causing the barrier to buckle “not under the weight of criminal networks, but because of a judge’s decision.”

The ruling “was well known to the Spanish authorities. They could not have been unaware that it weakened the whole framework,” the source said.

The Moroccan source asked whether anyone had warned Morocco to prepare in advance. “No,” they said. “Did anyone anticipate the fallout, even though it was entirely foreseeable? No.”

“It comes as no surprise then that smuggling networks seized the opportunity under these circumstances,” they stressed.

The source concluded that the real “game changer” lays in “the gap between the triggering factor (the judge’s ruling) and the delayed response.”