In 2015, in the midst of Syria’s civil war, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared “We can do it!” (Wir Schaffen Das!), and Germany proceeded to shelter more than one million Syrian refugees. This leadership decision required significant political courage on Merkel’s part and the mobilization of German society. Germany suspended the Dublin Regulation (which requires asylum seekers to apply for asylum in the first EU country of entry), which took the burden off border states and let asylum seekers apply directly in Germany. Merkel’s leadership was possible both because of her own political courage, but also because Germany’s federal government and its civil society had a recent history of enabling migration and asylum.