This article focuses on the tension between the figure of the migrant and that of the refugee as they are being defined and disputed in Europe today. There is a stratification of legitimacies in terms of the right to access to the European Union (EU) that favors those who escape persecution or war and delegitimizes economic migrants. After presenting the genealogy of the refugee category, it analyzes the consequences of this dichotomy for managing those who cross the maritime border of Europe. What kind of strategies, agencies and subjectivities are mobilized by a border regime that favors suffering over enterprise? And what resources do travelers use, once they are reduced to the condition of bare life, to qualify to stay via the paradox of their own disqualification? Finally, the article mentions the challenges posed by the new biometric technologies of border control and raises the question of possible affinities between the refugee and other vulnerable social figures.