Graduate Journal of Social Science, Volume 15, Issue 1 Cooperation Unit, the European Asylum Support Office, the Greek Asylum service, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Organisation of Migration and various International and Non-Governmental Organisations; the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation has also been deployed in order to patrol into the Aegean Sea and “assist” in tackling the “criminal trafficking networks”, which were blamed for the deaths of hundreds of border crossers (NATO, 2016). NATO’s operations at the Aegean Sea inaugurated and established a whole new geopolitical epoch as far as the militarisation of the Aegean Sea is concerned (Garelli & Tazzioli, 2016). Additionally, the “geographical restriction” rule was reinforced by the Greek authorities in order to “comply”, as they put it, with the EU-Turkey Statement’s terms and conditions. Under the rule of “geographical restriction”, all new border crossers are arriving at the Greek Islands after 20th March 2016 are coerced by the Greek authorities to remain there until their bureaucratic and asylum procedures have been completed (Greek Council for Refugees, 2016a). As if shutting down the Balkan route and the potential of deportation or “re-admission” to Turkey was not enough, border-crossers additionally found themselves in a state of captivity by the Greek state. The geographical restriction rule indefinitely immobilised border crossers on Lesvos by creating a prison context for them, where the prison is not located only within Moria camp but everywhere on the Island. According to Katja Franko Aas, “one does not need prisons to be, or feel, incarcerated in the locality” (2007, p.293). As Sariad iii, a Syrian border crosser, puts it, echoing most of my interviewees, “The Island is like a prison; the only difference now is that there are no fences; there is instead the sea.” As I was standing outside the ‘cage-port’, I saw the ferry to Athens getting ready to sail, as the last passengers were running to board. A small group of border-crossing men were showing their “papers” to the coastguard who, with a dismissive wave of his hand, indicated to them that they were not allowed to enter the port and ferry. Those border crossers were not lucky today, I thought. Maybe they will be lucky tomorrow. Who knows? And if not them, some others perhaps – some who will possess “genuine papers” or more professionally made passports purchased for a high price from traffickers- will be luckier. The more expensive the documents and passports are, the greater the chances of a successful exit from the island. You pay for what you get, after all. On the back side of the port, in the shadow of the statue which, ironically, is called the Statue of Liberty, another 8 (Unformatted version, page numbers not final)