The migration crisis in Europe has long since ceased to be a purely humanitarian issue, having evolved into a fierce geopolitical and legal standoff, driven by a vast international network of human traffickers and organised crime. Meanwhile, the role of certain charity organisations and NGOs has come under close scrutiny.
The illegal industry originates far away from Europe’s borders, with international organised crime groups turning human suffering into a multi-billion business. Smugglers use complex underground networks, logistics centres in North Africa and the Balkans, as well as hidden communication channels to transport people on a massive scale. According to Europol, this activity is closely connected to drug trafficking, arms dealing and money laundering using shell companies. Criminal syndicates provide migrants with forged documents, coordinate logistics and supply vessels, charging exorbitant sums for their services.
As soon as the illegal routes reach the European Union’s external borders, the second part of this mechanism comes into play: legally operating humanitarian missions.
A network of rescue organisations has been set up in border areas, whose public activities often serve as a legal and moral shield against the consequences of smugglers’ activities.
Maritime organisations such as Sea-Watch and SOS Méditerranée charter civilian vessels to patrol the Libyan coastline, rescuing migrants from inflatable boats and delivering them to ports in Italy or Greece. In addition, they are supported by the international network Alarm Phone, which acts as an alternative rescue service. Generally, migrants provide volunteers with their GPS coordinates via satellite communication, and the latter forward the data to the coastguard, thereby legally compelling them to carry out a rescue operation.
Meanwhile, at land borders, in the Polish forests and across the Balkans, local groups such as Grupa Granica take up the baton, providing people with supplies and food to help them stay in the area until they encounter border guards.
Once a migrant arrives in Europe, the focus of assistance shifts to their regularisation and integration into society. Major human rights organisations, including Amnesty International and the European Council on Refugees, are launching major legal challenges to deportation orders. At a practical level, protection is given by medical organisations such as “Doctors of the World,” helping undocumented immigrants to access state hospitals without having to show their passports. The religious organisations Caritas and Diakonie provide new arrivals with accommodation, financial assistance and language courses.
However, behind this big human rights work lies a darker side, which is increasingly coming to the attention of European intelligence services and the mainstream media.
Journalistic investigations along the Balkan route and in Calais, France, have revealed that volunteers share detailed instructions on so-called “digital hygiene” to migrants, helping to cover the tracks of criminal syndicates. Refugees are advised to clear their messaging apps before coming into contact with the police, deleting correspondence with people smugglers, route maps and details of money transfers. Moreover, activists are instructing migrants not to take any photographs on their phones during the illegal crossing, so that the metadata and geolocation data from the images cannot be used in court as evidence of illegal border crossing. Meanwhile, any contacts in safe transit countries are removed from phone so that asylum seekers can claim to have fled directly from a war zone.
For example, Captain Support, a transnational network of activists and volunteers based in Europe, has advised refugees in the Dunkirk area to download a guide for those crossing the English Channel. Among the recommendations, one advises against standing near the vessel’s engine so as not to be mistaken for the helmsman, and to stop inflatable boats if British Border Force vessels begin to approach them, so that no one is seen at the helm.
Besides this, detailed guides are being circulated on the European segment of the internet and in private Facebook chat groups for foreigners planning to cross EU borders. One of the videos serves as a step-by-step guide to survival and regularisation, teaching migrants how to manipulate the European legal system.
In the video, translated into Arabic and English, a man advises migrants arriving in Europe to straight away inform the police that they are seeking asylum by using the strict phrases “Asylum” or “International Protection” to save themselves from deportation, and to closely follow the rules in the screening centres. If disaster strikes at sea, he recommends hiding correspondence using “disappearing messages” on WhatsApp and Telegram, contacting the Alarm Phone volunteer network, and avoiding taking photos or videos in order to keep the police from identifying the organisers of the crossing. Conspiracy measures are offered for those in an irregular situation, such as purchasing anonymous Lycamobile or Lebara SIM cards, using offline Google Maps, making use of offline Google Maps, disguising oneself as a tourist, and seeking help or overnight accommodation at religious sites.
Nevertheless, this kind of training gradually shifts from the digital sphere into the legal sphere when volunteers begin to prepare migrants for questioning.
Investigations in refugee camps in Greece and Italy have found that new arrivals are given ready-made “scripts” for dealing with immigration officials. People are taught to dispose of their passports and claim that their documents were lost at sea, delaying the deportation process for years. Young men are advised to claim to be minors, as European laws prohibit the deportation of persons under the age of 18 and oblige the state to fully support them.
This practice has provoked a strong political reaction, with conservative groups using these facts as evidence of the existence of an entire “industry” of illegal migration, demanding that the actions of certain NGOs be recognised as aiding and abetting human trafficking.
In the end, the European model of refugee assistance has turned into a destructive system in which humanitarian ideals are subject to organised crime.
