The Global Leadership Academy, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, runs international dialogue processes on complex global challenges. This paper documents a Migration Lab that brought together leaders from government, civil society, and the private sector across multiple countries to develop new approaches to migration governance. The process combined Professional Dialogue methodology with 'learning immersions'; direct encounters with refugees and migrants that moved participants from analytical distance to emotional engagement. When policymakers visited refugee initiatives in Berlin, many emerged 'deeply moved,' speaking of shame at the lack of human-centred policy. The Lab produced eight project proposals presented at the 2018 Global Forum on Migration and Development in Marrakech. Apel candidly explores the daily tension between working within a government agency's bureaucratic constraints while attempting to hold spaces where diverse actors can meet as genuine equals.