As modes of border control increasingly shift to cities, private charities that engage in caring for non-national homeless migrants risk, unintentionally and unwillingly, serving the so-called ‘migration industries’ as front agencies for the European border regime. Since the 2008 financial crisis, which hit migrant populations in southern Europe particularly hard, the number of homeless migrants sleeping rough in northern European cities has increased. In Copenhagen, these new homeless include jobless West African men who reside in Spain or Italy but are transiently in the city to reboot their lives by collecting empty deposit-carrying bottles left on the streets. Political will to address this rising social problem at state and city levels has so far been limited, leaving the private non-profit charities of central Copenhagen as sole providers of care for homeless migrants. This article examines how these long-established institutions, which used to provide care primarily to locals with substance dependencies or mental health problems, have transformed into migrant industries shaped by the logic of the European border regime. For this purpose, prior research on urban borderlands and homeless migrants is reviewed, and documents issued by non-profit charities operating in the field of urban homelessness are analysed. The article focuses on the increasingly hostile elements of state and municipal policies on non-Western migrants, which work to divide ‘our’ homeless from the migrant ‘others’. It also considers the various ways in which charities work to enable different survival strategies to emerge and be maintained among migrants without access to the formal labour market, and finally how charities’ transformed role affects their relationships with local residents.

随着边境控制模式越来越多地向城市转移，从事照顾非本国无家可归移民的私人慈善机构可能会无意和不情愿地为所谓的“移民行业”服务，成为欧洲边境制度的前线机构。自 2008 年金融危机对南欧的移民人口造成特别严重的打击以来，在北欧城市露宿街头的无家可归移民人数有所增加。在哥本哈根，这些新的无家可归者包括居住在西班牙或意大利的失业西非男子，但他们暂时在该市通过收集留在街上的空存款瓶来重新开始他们的生活。迄今为止，在州和城市层面解决这一日益严重的社会问题的政治意愿有限，让哥本哈根市中心的私人非营利慈善机构成为无家可归移民的唯一提供者。本文探讨了这些历史悠久的机构，这些机构过去主要为有物质依赖或心理健康问题的当地人提供护理，如何转变为受欧洲边境制度逻辑塑造的移民产业。为此，回顾了以往对城市边缘地区和无家可归者的研究，并分析了在城市无家可归者领域开展业务的非营利慈善机构发布的文件。这篇文章关注的是州和市政府对非西方移民越来越敌对的因素，这些因素将“我们的”无家可归者与“其他人”的移民分开。