Introduction
At the European Union borders, the criminalisation of migrants is a growing structural trend that characterises states’ approaches to managing inflows of people. In particular, the last decade has seen a concerning increase in the criminalisation of small boats and dinghies trying to reach European shores. From 2023 to 2024 alone, the criminalisation of people crossing borders increased by 20 percent (PICUM, 2025). The “captains”, namely the migrants in charge of steering the boat or calculating the route to land, are facing charges for people smuggling and are at the centre of focus of political debate surrounding migration, especially in Southern Europe (Papadouka, et al., 2024; Santos, 2025).
Most migrants facing prosecution (84 percent) are charged for these crimes, often simply for steering the boat or assisting the other passengers in getting on board or offering water and translation (Papadouka, et al., 2024; PICUM, 2025). This approach by the governments is completely arbitrary and used to create scapegoats, giving the impression of serious and effective border securitisation (Papadouka, et al., 2024; Orlando, 2025). Additionally, the blending of migration and crime as one ends up harming people who are already victims of abuses and human rights violations without tackling the root causes of migration flows (Papadouka, et al., 2024).
This piece will delve into the practice of criminalising migrants’ boats captains by European countries and the legal framework that such countries unlawfully exploit. It will cover exemplary and miserable data and case studies from European countries, particularly those by the Mediterranean.
Structural Dynamics of Criminalisation
Migrants are often criminalised as core participants of networks of people smugglers, although they commonly have little to no connection to such groups, as testified by the low conviction rates (30 percent in Italy) (Papadouka, et al., 2024; PICUM, 2025). This trend has emerged following the spike in asylum and refuge claims during the 2010s. In 2015, EU directives concerning migration placed the focus on organised crime groups involved in smuggling and made the eradication of these a top priority (Winkler, et al., 2023).
Many of the captains accused of these crimes take up the position to cover or lower the cost of their passage or that of a relative, or merely because they have been forced to do so (Winkler, et al., 2023; PICUM, 2025). Given the legal frameworks which criminalise the facilitation of the entry of asylum seekers, people face charges based on simple acts such as using a phone and a map at sea or steering the boat. People travelling with relatives have been accused of facilitating their entry into EU borders (PICUM, 2025). It is important to note that these accusations, regardless of whether they are confirmed or not in a court, significantly impact people’s lives (e.g. being detained) and their ability to apply for asylum and obtain residence permits (PICUM, 2025).
This approach contradicts international law. The Geneva Refugee Convention states the individual’s right to enter a country without prior permission to seek asylum (Winkler, et al., 2023). Correspondingly, Article 5 of the UN Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants by Land, Sea, and Air stipulates that migrants who are the object of smuggling cannot be held liable to criminal prosecution (Winkler, et al., 2023). Yet, countries charge asylum seekers who survived navigating the sea.
Legal frameworks in countries like Greece and Italy define smuggling broadly, making it easy to stretch the concept of “facilitation of migration” (Papadouka, et al., 2024; Orlando, 2025; PICUM, 2025). Besides the Mediterranean, this approach is found elsewhere in Europe. In 2022, the United Kingdom’s Nationality and Borders Act introduced the crime of ‘illegal arrival’, also expanding the maximum penalty for ‘facilitating arrival’ to life imprisonment, thereby criminalising boat captains (Papadouka, et al., 2024; MacTaggart, et al., 2025).
In 2023, the European Parliament (EP), together with the European Commission (EC), put forth a proposal to update directives regarding countering the facilitation of unauthorised entry into the EU (EP & EC, 2023). It declares its intent to protect the dignity and health of vulnerable people. The proposal also states that this new directive would not intend to “criminalise, on the one hand, assistance provided to family members and, on the other hand, humanitarian assistance or the support of basic human needs provided to third-country nationals in compliance with legal obligations” (EP & EC, 2023, p.12). However, the new proposal still allows for broad definitions of what constitutes smuggling and who should not be prosecuted, de facto allowing unjust arrests to continue, as they have (PICUM, 2025).
Anti-smuggling legislation is presented as a tool to combat criminal networks and protect vulnerable migrants (Papadouka, et al., 2024; PICUM, 2025). In practice, it ends up disproportionally (and intentionally) targeting the asylum seekers themselves (Winkler, et al., 2023; PICUM, 2025). For a boat to reach Europe, someone clearly has to steer it, and asylum seekers have the right to seek refuge without prior authorisation. The arrival of asylum seekers boats has been turned by political framing into a spectacle of tough border control, while migrants are scapegoated and criminalised (Papadouka, et al., 2024).
Key Case studies of the Scapegoating of Migrants
The cases discussed here show how those seeking asylum are criminalised for survival actions, while authorities run on propaganda narratives around tackling smuggling networks to keep the borders in check and migrants away from exploitation and harm.
In December 2023, Maysoon Majidi, a Kurdish-Iranian activist fleeing persecution, and Marjan Jamali, a woman escaping domestic violence with her eight year-old son, arrived at Italian shores by boat (PICUM, 2025). Both were accused of smuggling and consequently detained on the basis that they had shared food and water with other passengers (PICUM, 2025). The women spent significant time in prison, with Jamali being separated from her son (PICUM, 2025). In February 2025, both were acquitted for lack of evidence, highlighting their arbitrary arrest (PICUM, 2025).
Children are not exempt from this treatment. In May 2025, a 19-year-old Egyptian and a 17-year-old Sudanese were arrested in Salerno (Italy) after arriving on NGO rescue ship Solidaire (ANSA & InfoMigrants, 2025). Authorities accused them of aiding and abetting illegal immigration because they are suspected of having acted as captains of the boat (ANSA & InfoMigrants, 2025). Similarly, in 2023 two Senegalese underage boys were arrested in Gran Canaria (Spain) for being boat captains (PICUM, 2025). The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child intervened, ordering Spain to recognise their age and spare them from detention with adults (PICUM, 2025). The Spanish court confirmed that their detention violated the principle of the best interest of the child and their right to be heard (PICUM, 2025). In Italy, S. Mohammad, a Syrian boy, was falsely accused of being a people smuggler (PICUM, 2025). His initial sentence was overturned after he was unjustly imprisoned for almost two years (PICUM, 2025).
Shipwreck survivors have also faced criminal charges linked to their role as boat captains. In Greece, nine Egyptian migrants who survived the tragic shipwreck causing multiple deaths that happened in June 2023 in Pylos were charged as smugglers (PICUM, 2025). After their trial was delayed until May 2024, the Greek court acquitted the defendants (PICUM, 2025). Thus, survivors who had to suffer the emotional cost of a shipwreck were kept behind bars for almost a year as a way to combat criminal smuggling networks. Later, The Deputy Prosecutor of the Greek Piraeus Naval Court charged 17 members of the Greek coastguard for causing the boat to capsize (Beake, 2025; Middle East Eye, 2025). After threats of being kicked out of the Schengen Area, Greece is particularly harsh on alleged smugglers, who make up 20 percent of the country’s prison population (Traynor, 2016; Winkler, et al., 2023).
The Hellenic country’s criminalisation of migrants is particularly concerning. In the country, over 40 Sudanese youths aged 17–21 face trafficking charges for tasks such as steering boats during their journey (Santos, 2025). One was sentenced in March 2025 to 300 years in prison and a €3,000,000 fine (Santos, 2025). Illustrating the severity of the situation, the average conviction for this crime in Greece is 46 years in prison and a fine of €332.209, with many trials taking place based merely off of the testimony of a single policeman or guard (Winkler, et al., 2023).
These cases reveal the worrying pattern of criminalisation of migrants, who are punished for survival actions such as steering the boat on their rightful way to asylum. By prosecuting those most visible and targetable, European governments create scapegoats to display a supposed fight against irregular migration, while the real smuggling networks remain untouched and systemic failures to rescue and grant asylum to those in need remain unaddressed.
Conclusion
This article sheds light on the conflation of migration and crime by European states, backed by EU directives. By prosecuting migrants for survival or empathetic actions such as steering the boat or offering food and water to fellow boat passengers, European leaders use the image of the “smuggler” to dismiss issues regarding their poor management of asylum requests, migrant integration, sea rescues, and international criminal smuggling networks.
This practice violates international law such as the Geneva Refugee Convention and the UN Protocol against the Smuggling of Migrants, and undermines the right to seek asylum even without prior authorisation. The approach targets shipwreck survivors, children, mothers, and keeps innocent people detained for prolonged times often on the basis of little and debatable evidence.
The deliberate choice by European countries to target powerless scapegoats perpetuates the cycle of violence for asylum seekers, and in no way does it tackle the root causes of migration, especially that by boat. The growing number of prosecutions shows that this path represents the chosen approach to deal with boats of asylum seekers. In this way migrants are punished twice: first by the violence they flee from, and then by the states who are obliged to rescue them. This dynamic exposes the criminalisation of boat captains not as a solution to irregular migration, but as a strategy of control built on fear, spectacle, and systemic neglect.
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