Nick Shirley Chased With a Knife in Ceuta

Last week, Madrid assured the rest of Europe that Ceuta was back under control. Nick Shirley decided to see the situation for himself and released a 29-minute documentary on Monday showing what he found. He saw men living in the hills above the city, residents staying inside their apartments, and at one point, a man chased him down a public street with a knife. The full documentary is intense and definitely worth watching.

The confrontation took place while Nick was filming with Javier Mansilla, who was traveling with him. A group of men surrounded them and told them to stop filming. Someone grabbed a glass bottle from a trash can and threw it, followed by rocks. One man chased Nick and Javier down the street, shouting that he was going to stab them. Spanish National Police eventually found Nick and drove him back to his car. Later, speaking to Laura Ingraham on Fox News, Nick said the man reached for a knife and “he said he was going to stab both of us.” Nick also mentioned the man was a Moroccan migrant.

While interviewing people on the streets of Ceuta, one woman told Nick she stayed inside with her baby for days after the crossing, and her neighbors on the ground floor were afraid of break-ins. Men camping in the hills above Ceuta thanked Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez by name for letting them in. Nick asked a 17-year-old from Morocco how he planned to get from Ceuta to the Spanish mainland, and he replied that he would seek asylum, as if it were a routine step. Others told Nick they planned to go to Paris, Germany, and London.

About 72,000 people did not enter a fenced Spanish city by chance. In January, Sánchez announced a mass regularization program that attracted over a million applications from migrants already living in Spain without legal status. On August 1, leaders from 22 of the EU’s 27 member states wrote, saying that this program was a pull factor for what happened in Ceuta. Madrid has denied this accusation. Which is interesting, because Nick got the migrants themselves saying it out loud, on camera, in their own words. Spanish officials can dispute what 22 prime ministers think caused this, although disputing the actual men who came will be challenging.

Spain says that 70,000 of the 72,000 people who entered Ceuta have returned to Morocco, leaving about 2,500 still there. The death toll on the Spanish side is now 72, up from the 67 reported on Monday, with more deaths also recorded on the Moroccan side. Italy has suspended passport-free Schengen travel with Spain for a month, and Finland, Denmark, and Czechia support calls to take even stronger measures.

We couldn’t do this without your support. Investigations, travel, and our team on the ground all exist because of you. We don’t take that for granted.

If you want to support our work, shop the Anti Fraud America 250 collection (& more). Every purchase directly fuels Nick Shirley’s future investigations.

If you’d like to support our mission for exposing fraud across the country, consider becoming a Founding Member today!

As a Founding Member, you’ll receive the core Anti Fraud Club articles, along with these benefits:

We truly appreciate your support and commitment to our mission.

Thank you.

On Monday morning, the bill that California Republicans call the “Stop Nick Shirley Act” was heard in the Senate Appropriations Committee, but its author, Mia Bonta, was not there to speak on its behalf. When the chair asked if anyone wanted to support AB 2624, no one stepped forward. Two people spoke against it, both independent journalists who would be affected by the bill.

We have been tracking this bill since it was introduced in February and reported when the Assembly passed it by a vote of 57 to 19 in May. AB 2624 would expand California’s Safe at Home address confidentiality program to include people who work or volunteer at immigration support services facilities. It would also prohibit posting their personal information or images online. Civil penalties would start at $4,000 per violation, while criminal penalties could reach $10,000 and up to a year in jail. Nick Shirley argues that the bill punishes those who expose fraud instead of the fraud itself, and that its definition of covered facilities is so broad it could include the nonprofits and care providers he investigates.

Max Bonilla told the committee that the numbers behind enforcing this bill do not add up. He pointed to Legislative Analyst’s Office data showing it costs between $127,800 and $132,860 each year to incarcerate one person in California, while the bill’s only revenue comes from application and annual fees meant to cover system maintenance. Bonilla said independent reporting acts as a free audit of public spending, and that putting reporters in jail would cost the state more than it would gain. Lucky Busseri, an 18-year-old journalist, added that the last time the Safe at Home program was expanded, it cost about $300,000, mostly for administrative staff, and this expansion would be much bigger.

Bonta has completely rejected this criticism. Her office says the bill would give immigration service workers the same protections that California already provides to domestic violence survivors and some health care workers. They say these workers are being followed home and threatened, and that critics are misrepresenting what the bill actually does. The bill is now on the Senate Appropriations suspense file, a place where expensive bills are often set aside without debate. The suspense hearing is on August 13, with no public testimony allowed. Committee leaders will decide which bills move forward by August 14, and the legislative session ends at midnight on August 31.

AB 2624 has already made it through this process once. The Assembly Appropriations Committee put it on suspense on May 13, then took it off the next day, and it passed the Assembly floor twelve days later. Since reaching the Senate, the bill has passed every committee vote, including Judiciary, Public Safety, and Privacy. The number of Democratic sponsors has also grown from eight to ten.

If the bill comes off suspense next week, it will go to the Senate floor, then back to the Assembly for approval of the Senate’s changes, and finally to Governor Gavin Newsom.

If you want to contact your California state senator, you can find them at findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov.

Vice President JD Vance was clear about his stance this week. “I don’t care where you came from. I don’t care what your name is,” he said. He argued that anyone taking advantage of American taxpayers should go to prison, and that public leaders should work to make that happen. On Wednesday, he invited members of Congress to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building to discuss why the federal government still struggles to do this.

Vance pointed out a major issue to lawmakers: a lack of oversight. When Washington sends food stamp money to states, the federal government cannot see who actually gets it. He used California as an example, saying that if the state gives benefits to someone in the country illegally or to a violent criminal, no one higher up can tell, and sometimes even the state does not know. His solution is a law that would require states to share enrollment data with the federal government.

Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff for policy, took it a step further. He called for “strict, clear, mandatory minimums” for people convicted of fraud. He argued that prosecuting a few hundred people each year and giving them real prison time would discourage many more from committing fraud than the current system does.

During the Camp David cabinet meeting on July 31, which was the first to be televised, Vance announced 17 new anti-fraud measures worth about a third of a billion dollars. He repeated a point this newsletter has made since March: fraud creates two groups of victims. Taxpayers lose their money, and the people the program is meant to help lose the service. He gave an example of a Medicaid program for low-income mothers and babies, where the money was going to operators instead of the mothers.

When Vance talked about what taxpayers do not want to fund, he mentioned a fraudulent Somali daycare center. This is the same type of operation that Nick began filming in Minneapolis last winter, before any of these federal policies existed. The task force has spent five months showing that the money is there. Now, it is up to Congress to decide if any of these efforts will continue after this administration.

Do you think Congress will actually make this law, or will it stall in committee? Reply to this email and share your thoughts.