Between humanitarian assistance and migration management: on civil actors' role in voluntary return from Belgium

Whilst European governments have increasingly externalised restrictive migration policies to civil actors, the latter’s main interests lie in improving or defending immigrants’ well-being. This raises the crucial question as to how civil actors deal with the puzzling position they find themselves in: to what extent do they execute or transform their funders’ policy objectives? And which mechanisms enable them to do so? This article contributes to answering these questions by detailing the historical shifts in the roles played by civil actors in the Assisted Voluntary Return programme in Belgiu... Mehr ...