The consistent securitization of migration in Europe of the past decades has been consequential: one of its most visible aspects is currently displayed in the regulation of asylum in Europe. By constructing migrants as a physical and ontological threat, by redrawing borders as barriers against otherness, by reaffirming the identity-maintenance aspects of citizenship, the securitization of migration and the lumping of asylums together with migration in all key European Union regulatory moves has enabled the rationalization of protection from asylum seekers. This article takes up a national study of the policy narratives and practices around one of the understudied recent asylum hotspots in the European Union: the Bulgarian-Turkish border, forming part of the external European Union border. The analysis emphasizes how the re-bordering dynamics identified in Bulgaria (as a European Union member state) is embedded within similar narratives and practices at all levels of European Union asylum politics. It argues that these (re-)bordering narratives and practices undermine the notion of protection, weaken the Europeanization of asylum and threaten the legitimacy of political communities in the European Union. These consequences need to be taken into account when studying the struggle between human rights and democracy in the regulation of asylum, as well as when discussing the strategic direction of European Union migration governance. © The Author 2016.

Borders and bordering Asylum seekers Political community Europeanization

regional policy immigration policy politics border region refugee European Union Bulgaria asylum seeker