Nikolia Apostolou

Special for USA TODAY

LESBOS, Greece — Police recently arrested a Spanish couple taking an early morning ferry to Italy from the northwestern port city of Igoumenitsa with eight refugees hiding inside their camper van.

The pair said they knew what they were doing was illegal. They didn’t care, they told the judge this month as they pleaded not guilty to the smuggling charges against them. They didn't receive any financial compensation for the incident, which occurred in late December. They were only trying to help, they added.

Mikel Zuluaga, 61, an author, and Begona Huerte, 59, a teacher, remain unapologetic. “We'll be back to do it again,” Zuluaga said.

Despite harsh sentences for trafficking undocumented refugees across borders — jail time of up to 10 years and fines of up to $32,000 — closed European Union frontiers and deteriorating living conditions in migrant camps have spurred a new group of activists to defy the law and smuggle refugees into Western Europe.

Early this month, a French farmer went on trial for giving food, shelter and transportation to dozens of refugees traveling from Italy to France through the French Alps. In November, a Spanish woman was arrested at Athens airport for trying to help a Kurdish man reunite with his family in Germany by giving him a family member's passport to use. Last summer, a young Swiss man gave his passport to a Syrian man who managed to fly into London on it and claim asylum there.

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And in a high-profile case this month, a French court found Rob Lawrie, 51, a British army veteran who served in Afghanistan, not guilty for trying to smuggle a 4-year-old Afghan girl named Bahar from Calais's Jungle camp into the United Kingdom to reunite with her relatives there.

The veteran admitted that he broke the law, but said he didn’t regret it. “In the middle of this massive population movement are many thousands of children who are nothing more than victims of the (EU) policies,” Lawrie said. “The U.K. and Europe need to now start to proactively help (solve) this problem."

These self-declared humanitarian smugglers' attempts to help refugees come amid a rising wave of anti-immigrant and far-right nationalist sentiments sweeping Europe since a flood of refugees began pouring in two years ago. The resulting support for populists has put pressure on politicians to close borders and tighten asylum rules, especially in Germany, which took in 1 million refugees in 2015.

The political situation also led to a deal between the EU and Turkey in March to deport most migrants back to Turkey and close borders elsewhere. That stemmed the tide of new refugees while marooning others in Greece. The number of refugees arriving in Greece fell from about 1 million annually to 362,000 since the deal took effect, according to EU officials.

More than 62,000 refugees remain stuck in Greece — waiting in camps or makeshift tent cities as officials decide whether to grant them asylum or deport them.

Their plight has inspired EU citizens to take action, especially after seeing the increasingly desperate conditions the refugees face — photos of refugees in tents covered with snow in Greece went viral in January — and the lack of action by governments to mitigate the suffering.

“It looks like we have to create solutions ourselves because these kinds of EU policies create more problems," said Emanouela Varouksaki, a lawyer representing Zuluaga and Huerte. "I see that in the future, these kind of acts will be (a daily occurrence).”

British veteran Lawrie was motivated by photos of the lifeless body of 3-year-old Alan Kurdi that washed up on a Turkish shore in 2015 after his family fled Syria and tried to make it to Europe across the Mediterranean Sea. Afterward, he bought a van, filled it up with tents and clothes and left for northern France to help.

There he met Reza Ahmadi, who fled Afghanistan and lived in the Calais "jungle" camp. Amhadi pleaded with Lawrie repeatedly to take Bahar, 4, to the U.K. In October, Lawrie relented.

His actions destroyed his life, he now says: His marriage fell apart, he's in debt, and he tried to kill himself late last year. Even so, he is now raising funds to return to Calais to help more refugees.

"(This problem) is simply not going to go away by ignoring the issues at hand," he said. "Nor is it going to go away by endless debates in parliaments. While politicians discuss, refugees freeze and die.”