Abstract
<p>Irregular migration crises often evolve more rapidly than conventional migration monitoring systems can detect. Although official migration statistics remain indispensable for documenting realised migration flows, they are typically published only after migration events have unfolded, limiting their value for anticipatory migration governance. This study proposes Digital Migration Intelligence as an integrated conceptual and analytical framework for the development of Irregular Migration Early Warning Systems and examines its applicability through the 2026 Ceuta migration crisis.The study combines multilingual Google Trends analyses with evidence derived from Facebook communities and Meta Audience Insights. Rather than relying on isolated search terms, the proposed framework analyses the convergence of multilingual behavioural, communication and demographic digital traces, including destination-related, border-related, environmental, route-related and legal-information searches originating from Morocco, Algeria and Mauritania.The findings suggest that migration-related digital activity intensified several days before the documented escalation of migration pressure. The strongest convergence of multilingual digital indicators was observed in Morocco, while comparable patterns in Algeria and a more limited signal in Mauritania provided additional support for the proposed analytical framework. Facebook communities revealed active communication networks through which migration-related information circulated, whereas Meta Audience Insights contributed complementary demographic evidence on language-specific digital populations.The principal contribution of the study is the development of Digital Migration Intelligence as a multidimensional framework integrating behavioural, communication and demographic digital evidence within a single analytical perspective. The Ceuta case provides a proof of concept illustrating how multilingual digital traces may complement existing migration monitoring by identifying behavioural changes preceding rapidly evolving irregular migration crises. Future research should prospectively evaluate the framework across different migration corridors and assess its integration with artificial intelligence-assisted monitoring systems.Keywords: Irregular Migration, Migration Early Warning Systems; Digital Migration Intelligence; irregular migration; digital demography; Big Data; Ceuta.</p>