There has been a twist to my report last week that the incoming president of the European Commission, José Manuel Barroso, has undertaken to separate justice and security issues at European level by creating a commissioner for justice and fundamental rights alone. The current commissioner with the combined portfolio of justice, security and immigration, Jacques Barrot (who has never indicated in the past that he was in favour of a split), has this week proposed that there should in fact be a three-way split, so that immigration has its own commissioner.

There is much to be said for this position. Along with energy security and climate change, immigration is one of the mighty and insoluble issues with which the EU is grappling. You would have to possess a heart of stone not to be moved by the pictures and stories of thousands of immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa packed into boats, and landing on the beaches of Spain and Italy. The most striking example occurred when tourists sunning themselves in Tenerife helped 88 exhausted African migrants on to the beach, fed and watered them, and ferried them to local hospitals in their cars. But the land route across Asia brings many more, as we have seen this week with harrowing stories of young Afghan boys sleeping on the streets of Calais after the destruction of the make-shift camp, The Jungle, and reports from Greece that they cannot cope with the incoming waves.

There are two sides to immigration: the horrors undergone by the immigrants throwing themselves at the walls of fortress Europe in an effort to get in; and the uncomfortable truths we must face regarding the consequences of immigration, such as a rise in social tensions and the concomitant rise in anti-immigration political parties in many parts of Europe. We should not forget, at the same time, that it was not that long ago that people were fleeing Europe in their thousands, whether Irish people fleeing the potato famine to America in coffin ships in the 19th century, or Jews fleeing Germany and other parts of central Europe in the middle of the 20th, all of whom were grateful to receive a home somewhere.

Is this an issue for us as lawyers, or is it a social issue which concerns us just as citizens? Clearly, we are affected as lawyers in two ways. First, social issues are resolved through the law. Lawyers have no problem in commenting on a range of legislation – how it is drafted, what its consequences might be – and immigration is no different. Second, the immigrants themselves are sorely in need of legal advice, usually without resources to pay for them. No other EU country has a legal aid system as generous as that of the UK and immigrants often receive no assistance at all.

The problem is so overwhelming that it is tempting to shrug and say that it is beyond us. The Immigration Law Practitioners Association comments on European legislation in this area (as well as on UK laws, of course). The Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe is going to consider a paper on EU immigration issues for the first time next month, although the question of how future work on immigration would be resourced will have to be dealt with.

But the most pressing question is providing legal advice to the immigrants themselves. If there are energetic and public-spirited lawyers out there, there are thousands of immigrants who have just arrived in the EU with nothing after the most desperate and dangerous journeys, particularly in the Mediterranean countries, and they need your help. Sometimes they are children travelling alone. They know nothing of their legal rights. For some lawyers, it could be the most rewarding project.

Jonathan Goldsmith is the Secretary General of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE), which represents over 700,000 European lawyers through its member bars and law societies