Spain's top court rules mass deportation of minors to Morocco was illegal

FILE PHOTO: Migrants walk outside a facility prepared for them, accompanied by members of a NGO and Spanish police officers, near the Spanish-Moroccan border, after thousands of migrants swam across this border during the last days, in Ceuta, Spain, May 21, 2021. REUTERS/Jon Nazca/File Photo

MADRID (Reuters) - The deportation of hundreds of Moroccan youths from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in August, 2021 after a mass border crossing was illegal, Spain's Supreme Court ruled on Monday, dealing a blow to the leftist coalition government's immigration policy.

The judges dismissed the government's appeal against an earlier ruling by a local court in Ceuta that had ordered Madrid to ensure the youths' return to Spain as it deemed their expulsion unlawful.