Current discourses of migration like to talk in oppositions: Of refugees versus migrants, of humans versus citizens, and of international/transnational rights versus national sovereignty. This contribution uses the case of Germany’s Temporary Humanitarian Admission Programmes (THAP), and federal state admission programmes of 2013–2015 to examine how these alleged opposites play out and collapse in a particular policy and practice case. Looking simultaneously at struggles over asylum and struggles over citizenship, it is this contribution’s aim to help bring these opposites together. I will make three points: 1) that the admission programmes both draw and blur the economic/migranthumanitarian/refugee distinction, 2) that citizenship remains a central criterion for defining access to admission, and 3) that the admission programmes perpetuate a layering of statuses and rights that fall short of addressing the questions of political participation and democratic legitimacy.
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