Perhaps the most famous image of the 2015 migration crisis was that of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian child refugee whose body was photographed lying on a Turkish beach after he drowned attempting to cross the Mediterranean. The photograph moved millions across Europe, including in Germany. Yet Kurdi's family had set out from Turkey, a safe country, in an attempt to reach Europe. Generous asylum laws had enticed them into danger.
Compassion Is No Longer Working
According to Politico, charities involved in the lucrative business of assisting migrants arriving in Europe are changing their tactics in pursuit of their goals. For one, they have recognized that appeals to public compassion are no longer as effective as they once were.
Public opinion has shifted as Europeans have experienced migration on an unprecedented scale, with most asylum seekers being young men, many lacking the documentation needed to vet them. Concerns about the economic contribution and integration of some migrant groups, as well as the involvement of migrants in violent crime and terrorism, have further hardened attitudes toward immigration.
This has led NGOs to rethink their tactics and turn increasingly to lawfare. Migration NGOs provide legal assistance to asylum seekers, lodge appeals and challenge government migration policies before national and international courts. The Council of Europe's Expert Council on NGO Law explicitly describes legal aid, human-rights arguments and the use of appeal procedures, including before international bodies, as part of the work carried out by civil-society organizations.
This is strategic litigation: using individual cases not merely to secure an outcome for one migrant, but potentially to establish precedents that constrain what governments can subsequently do. Governments seeking to reduce migration therefore face an adversary not only in the political arena but also in the legal one. Any serious attempt to change European migration policy consequently has to be prepared to defend those policies through the courts as well.
The Business of Migration
This is what makes Europe's migration NGO complex so difficult for politicians seeking to limit its activities to tackle. What presents itself as a humanitarian enterprise has grown into an extensive ecosystem of charities, lawyers, humanitarian organizations, public bodies and private companies, some of it financed directly by taxpayers.
The EU's migration fund, for example, lists NGOs and humanitarian organizations among those eligible for funding, while migration and integration projects can receive EU co-financing of up to 90%. The financial burden does not end when migrants reach European soil. EU rules require member states to provide asylum applicants with housing, food, clothing, a daily allowance, hygiene products and necessary healthcare. Once someone has entered, removing them can prove extraordinarily difficult.
In 2024, EU countries issued 453,380 non-EU citizens with orders to leave, yet only 110,385 were returned to a third country. Entry into Europe can therefore result in de facto long-term residence even where there is ultimately no legal right to remain.
For former German Chancellor Angela Merkel to admit to the press today that she failed to foresee how difficult it would be to actually remove migrants obligated to leave the country is not only rather implausible. It also describes a self-induced legal reality, one further fueled by state funding of NGOs.
NGOs have moved from helping migrants reach Europe to helping them avoid having to leave, including when they do not qualify for asylum. Europeans now face not only a hefty tax bill to support the migration system and the NGOs operating within it, but also the risks posed by asylum seekers who may have arrived without documentation and whom their governments struggle to remove.
