No One-Size-Fits-All: Outreach and counselling for irregular migrants
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Highlights
EU outreach and counselling for irregular migrants remains fragmented; tailored, trust-based approaches show promise but need stronger data and shared success metrics.
- Outreach and counselling for irregular migrants in the European Union is a fragmented patchwork, with governments, NGOs, and local authorities using different mandates, target groups, and methods.
- Trust is essential; programs that combine mobile outreach, clear firewall protections from enforcement, and tailored communication reach more migrants not in contact with authorities.
- Broad case-resolution models—helping migrants explore asylum, regularisation, and voluntary return—perform better than narrowly return-focused approaches; a Netherlands pilot resolved about 75 percent of cases.
- Key gaps include limited data on irregular migrant profiles, weak evaluation frameworks, and few common indicators of success, prompting calls for coordinated data collection and structured peer learning.
Tackling irregular migration to Europe has long been high on the EU agenda. The strategies proposed and adopted for addressing this issue have evolved over time, resulting in an increasingly diverse set of tools. These include strengthened border controls, voluntary and forced return efforts, new legal pathways to offer alternatives to irregular movement, and regularization.
In recent years, European countries have also added to the toolkit to address irregular migration by conducting outreach and counselling for specific groups of irregular migrants. The reasons include informing them about available return and reintegration support, raising the visibility of pathways out of irregularity (such as regularization options, where they exist), and ensuring all members of a society have access to certain essential services.
As interest and investments in this area grow, this MPI Europe issue brief explores the diversity of initiatives, actors, and practices in this field. It draws, among other sources, on interviews with government and nongovernmental stakeholders in eight European countries (Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) and on roundtable discussions among public officials, local administrations, civil-society actors, and representatives of nongovernmental organizations.
Table of contents
1 Introduction
2 Growing Attention to and EU Investment in Addressing Irregular Migration
3 Outreach and Counselling: A Diverse Field, in More Ways than One
A. Leading Actors
B. Target Groups
C. The Setup of Initiatives
D. The Scope of Initiatives
4 Understanding the Goals Behind Outreach and Counselling
A. Ensuring Access to Basic Services and Support
B. Increasing Voluntary Return Rates
C. Advancing Case Resolution by Considering Multiple Ways to Address Irregularity
5 Knowledge Gaps in a Growing Field
A. Understanding Migrant Profiles and Needs: The Key to Tailored Support
B. Identifying Effective Program Models: What Works, When, and Why
C. Defining Success: Aligning Goals and Impact Metrics
6 Recommendations and Conclusion
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