Humanitarianism as conflicted care: Managing migrant assistance in EU Assisted Voluntary Return policies

Assisted Voluntary Return (AVR) programs occupy a central role in Europe's “management” of migration today. These state-funded programs allow migrants to meet with humanitarian counselors about the decision to return voluntarily, offering reintegration assistance and one-way travel booking to migrants' country of origin. This paper draws on interviews with practitioners at humanitarian organizations, those who counsel undocumented migrants and appeals rights exhausted asylum seekers about their decision to leave Europe via AVR, to consider the limits and potentials of humanitarian assistance for migrants in the EU's security-focused context. We query the degree to which care, as much as it is incorporated into regimes of bordering, can potentially disrupt hegemonic politics of assistance-as-governance. AVR provides a lens onto the politics of care and humanitarian assistance in migration management today, as migrants and practitioners negotiate together the decision to stay (with a limited range of legal options) or return via this increasingly relied upon policy.