Because you cannot treat a humanitarian issue without considering the humane aspects of it. As you said, your 'model' needs to consider the humane aspects of th

Because you cannot treat a humanitarian issue without considering the humane aspects of it. As you said, your 'model' needs to consider the humane aspects of the problem at hand. We're dealing with humans, so it sort of by definition of the term requires a humane approach. That humane approach is about understanding how the system as a whole affects all parties involved in it and their motives for their actions. The de facto situation in a worryingly large portion of people involved in debate about these topics is that it's not humanised to them, because it's at arm's length and they don't see it happen or feel any effect from it. It's no different to why seeing video footage of some atrocity is far more shocking than reading about it in a paper. That's why stuff like the OP and the link I posted is important - it's the next closest thing to shoving someone there themselves. Think of the OP as a laywer dogfooding the judicial system he helps operate. As an aside, there was a series on TV here a while ago called "Go Back to Where You Came From" [1]. It took a bunch of people, including some prominent anti-asylum political commentators and actually took them over to Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia, the Congo, etc. and showed them first-hand what life is like for the people fleeing these places. Unsurprisingly, their reaction to it in person was markedly different to their reaction to it when they're sitting in an office at home reading about it in a paper. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Back_To_Where_You_Came_From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go_Back_To_Where_You_Came_From