A border crossing is where the state treats everyone as a suspect. Where a distinction is made between residents and nonresidents. Regardless of how invisible borders have become, they still mark the point where one law ends and the other begins. For decades, debates about refugees have been held, classing them as illegals, fortune-seekers and criminals. Meanwhile, new wars displace ever more people. Arnon Grunberg travelled to Georgia where he spoke with Russian refugees – to Ukraine, to meet with those displaced by the war and to a Polish detention centre. He joins the Dutch immigration services for a short while. Grunberg examines how our borders produce both drowning and rescued people time and again. In doing so, he does not forget the history of Europe’s borders and its refugees. After all, without history, no present.