Frontex is of the devil, migration only knows victims, and Europe –we all know it- is a fortress. Quick conclusions and half-cooked criticism of migration and border policies in Europe are not hard to come by. But it does not help to reproduce well-meaning but misguided claims, especially if the aim is to change the status quo.

Thus, looking a bit more closely, one could find some new insights: the EU shares more features with a gated community, its border regime function more akin to a network firewall. It would show that Frontex is not Homeland Security, but nevertheless significantly impacting Europe’s institutional landscape. It could reveal that migration and migrants’ struggles have a deeper impact on the constitution of European societies than superficially assumed. And it could point to ways in which the fate of those “liminal people” could store perspectives for a continent truly without borders.

• Henk van Houtum and Roos Pijpers argue that the European Union is less a fortress and shows more resemblance with a gated community- an intricate system based on fear, judging on economic reasons who is allowed to enter- and who to stay out.
• Vassilis Tsianos and Aida Ibrahim doubt whether the commitment to linking migration and development within the “Global Approach to Migration” is more than just words.
• Bernd Kasparek shows how a too superficial critique of Frontex plays into the agency’s hands. A better understanding of the specific modes of European politics is called for.
• Juliane Karakayali and Serhat Karakayali present migration as a powerful social movement which unsettles Europe with the possibility of a new politics without fixed identities.