Migration regulation is enshrined in UK law, but implemented and policed on the ground. Think about those instances when you travel by airplane. Before boarding, you must undergo multiple levels of security checks: ticket checks, baggage checks and body scans plus checks of documents that identify you and allow you to enter the destination country (and re-enter the UK). Now, consider how many people, institutions and resources are needed to facilitate this process. Imagine the complex ways in which such people, institutions and resources interconnect to other places in the UK and beyond: migrants applying for visas in foreign embassies, border guards receiving training according to laws passed in Westminster, electronic equipment used for scanning bodies and technologies, often manufactured in the Global South.

The webs of connection that comprise systems used to regulate migration (of bodies and things) show that borders are not only located at border crossing points (such as airports and ferry terminals). As discussed above, the dynamic systems and webs regulating migration transgress physical borders and extend into offices of lawmakers and politicians, training centres for border guards and the offices of bureaucrats administering migration, among other places. All of these places and people are crucial in regulating migration on the ground.