Global IssuesA Test of Humanity: Migrants’ Rights in a World Turning Inward
MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay, Mar 24 (IPS) - The United Nations Refugee Agency faces devastating cuts that may eliminate 5,000 to 6,000 jobs, with potentially catastrophic consequences for millions of people fleeing war, repression, hunger and climate disasters. This 75-year-old institution, established to help Europeans displaced by the Second World War, now confronts an unprecedented financial crisis, primarily due to the US foreign aid freeze – and the timing couldn’t be worse.
As CIVICUS’s 14th annual State of Civil Society Report documents, a series of connected crisis – including conflicts, economic hardship and climate change – have created a perfect storm that threatens migrants and refugees, who face increasingly hostile policies and dangerous journeys from governments turning their backs on principles of international solidarity and human rights.
At least 8,938 people died on migration routes worldwide in 2024, making it the deadliest year on record, with many of the deaths in the Mediterranean and along routes across the Americas, including the Caribbean Sea, the Darién Gap between Colombia and Panama and the extensive border between Mexico and the USA. Just last week, six people died and another 40 are missing after their boat capsized in the Mediterranean.
Such tragedies have come time again over the last year. In March 2024, 60 people, including a Senegalese mother and her baby, died from dehydration after their dinghy was left adrift in the Mediterranean. In June, US border agents found seven dead migrants in the Arizona and New Mexico deserts. In September, seven people were found clinging to the sides of a boat that capsized off the Italian island of Lampedusa, after watching 21 other people, many of them family members, drown around them.
These tragedies weren’t accidents or policy failures. They were the predictable results of morally indefensible political choices.
The reality behind the rhetoric
The facts contradict populist narratives about migration overwhelming wealthy countries. At least 71 per cent of the world’s refugees remain in the global south, with countries such as Bangladesh, Colombia, Ethiopia and Uganda hosting far more displaced people than most European countries. Yet global north governments keep hardening borders and outsourcing migration management to prevent arrivals. The second Trump administration has declared a ‘national emergency’ at the US southern border, enabling military deployment and promising mass deportations while explicitly framing migrants as invaders – a rhetoric that history shows can easily lead to deadly consequences.
Europe continues its own troubling trajectory. Italy is attempting to transfer asylum seekers to Albanian detention centres, while the Netherlands has proposed sending rejected asylum seekers to Uganda, blatantly disregarding the state’s human rights violations, particularly against LGBTQI+ people. The European Union is expanding controversial deals with authoritarian governments in Egypt and Tunisia, effectively paying them to prevent migrants reaching European shores.
Anti-migrant rhetoric has become a common and effective electoral strategy. Far-right parties have made significant gains in elections in many countries by campaigning against immigration. Demonising narratives played a key role in Donald Trump’s re-election. The mobilisation of xenophobic sentiment extends beyond Europe and the USA, from anti-Haitian rhetoric in the Dominican Republic to anti-Bangladeshi campaigning in India.
Civil society under siege
Civil society organisations providing humanitarian assistance are increasingly being criminalised for their work. Italy has made it illegal for search-and-rescue organisations to conduct more than one rescue per trip, imposes heavy fines for noncompliance and deliberately directs rescue vessels to distant ports. These measures have achieved their intended goal of reducing the number of active rescue ships and contributed to the over 2,400 migrant drownings recorded in the Mediterranean in 2024 alone. Tunisia’s president has labelled people advocating for African migrants’ rights as traitors and mercenaries, leading to criminal charges and imprisonment.
Despite mounting obstacles, civil society maintains its commitment to protecting the human rights of migrants and refugees. Civil society groups maintain lifesaving operations in displacement settings from the Darién Gap to Cox’s Bazar in Bangladesh. Legal aid providers navigate increasingly complex asylum systems to help people access protection. Community organisations facilitate integration through language instruction, job placements and social connections. Advocacy groups document abuses and push for accountability when state authorities violate migrants’ human rights.
But they’re now operating with drastically diminishing resources in increasingly hostile environments. Critical protection mechanisms are being dismantled at a time of unprecedented need. The implications should alarm anyone concerned with human dignity. If borders keep hardening and safe pathways disappear, more people will attempt dangerous journeys with deadly consequences. The criminalisation of solidarity risks eliminating critical lifelines for the most vulnerable, and dehumanising rhetoric is normalising discrimination and institutionalising indifference and cruelty.
A different approach is possible
Rather than reactive, fear-based policies, civil society can push for comprehensive approaches that uphold human dignity while addressing the complex drivers of migration. This means confronting the root causes of displacement through conflict prevention, climate action and sustainable development. It also means creating more legal pathways for migration, ending the criminalisation of humanitarian assistance and investing in integration support.
There’s a need to challenge the fundamental assumption that migration is an existential threat rather than a manageable reality than requires humane governance, and an asset to receiving societies. Historically, societies that have integrated newcomers have greatly benefited from their contributions – economically, culturally and socially.
In a world of unprecedented and growing global displacement, the question isn’t whether migration will continue – it will – but whether it will be managed with cruelty or compassion. As CIVICUS’s State of Civil Society Report makes clear, the treatment of migrants and refugees serves as a litmus test: the way societies respond will prove or disprove their commitment to the idea of a shared humanity – the principle that all humans deserve dignity, regardless of where they were born or the documents they carry.
Inés M. Pousadela is CIVICUS Senior Research Specialist, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.
For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org.
© Inter Press Service (2025) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service