Irregular migration is a top priority in the European Union. Due to security and financial concerns, an increasing amount of resources are devoted to preventing people from entering without authorization, and to enforcing the return of Non-EU citizens who are not (or no longer) authorized to stay. At the same time, NGOs point to serious humanitarian side effects of this restrictive policy approach. Despite the political relevance of the phenomenon, assessments of the size of the irregular migrant population are often vague and of unclear origin. This website aims at increasing transparency in this sensitive field.
