conditions decreases, then this will negatively impact on the people seeking asylum who require their support or care.’ Indeed, no stories of harrowing border crossings, death and loss would shock me anymore (Fili, 2018b). Moreover, I often questioned whether all this suffering was real.112 My colleagues tried to reassure me by sharing their coping mechanism. You know the beginning is always difficult. Don’t worry about it, you’ll get used to it. We’ve been here for a very long time and we don’t respond like this anymore, our sentiments have frozen, which is good about us but not good for the job because we get very suspicious. We’ve seen a lot and we have to screen everyone. We have to realise who needs help and who’s lying. Sometimes we make mistakes but that’s the way it is. We are humans and we have to deal with it. It’s a strategic response to the difficulties of the work, I think. You have to be neutral and not let anything affect you so much. (Fieldnotes, Petrou Ralli detention centre, 2012) The principles of neutrality and impartiality that infuse the apolitical character of humanitarian action are central in managing professionals’ disillusionment with the field (Pallister-Wilkins, 2021; Rozakou, 2012). However, remaining neutral under conditions that so provocatively contravened basic standards of decency and humanity was extremely challenging. NGO staff employed yet another resource for coping; they tried to normalise the violence inflicted with detention by appealing to hegemonic discourses and expectations about citizenship and migration, as well as racialised and gendered ideas of who is a worthy subject of empathy and compassion. In a general climate of mistrust, upheld by representations of the police connecting migration to dangers to public order, NGO staff often expressed a similar rhetoric. One of my first days as a volunteer at the Petrou Ralli detention centre, I was approached by a Romanian citizen, who wanted to tell me her story because I was new there. She was immediately stopped by one of the social workers there saying ‘You don’t need anything, you come here and beg, you’ve committed a crime. Go outside please’. And then she turned to me ‘She is a repeated offender. I am strict with criminals. Don’t get offended. I just wanted to protect you.’ (Fieldnotes, Petrou Ralli detention centre, 2012). Bosworth and Kellezi (2016a, 2016b) have described similar difficulties when reflecting upon researching immigration detention centres in the UK. 112 168