What has the role of Egyptian communities across the Arab world been for post-2011 Egypt? In the Middle East, a region historically rich in a variety of migratory processes, the issue of how intra-Arab migratory movements affect bilateral state relations has been unanswered. The importance of regional labour migration tends to be approached in economistic, “push” versus “pull” terms, largely obscuring the frequent exploitation of these communities for political purposes. In contrast, this article demonstrates how Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, and Libya employed the potential displacement, or mistreatment, of Egyptian expatriate communities in order to affect Egyptian policy-making under President Mohamed Morsi in the 2012-13 period. By intentionally creating legal problems for the Egyptians residing in these three countries, elites aimed to gain specific concessions by the Egyptian state with regard to natural gas, the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, and the extradition of Libyan members of the Qaddafi regime. Methodologically, the article draws on content analysis of these crises’ coverage within Egyptian and Arabic media (print and online), as well as on semi-structured, elite interviews conducted in Cairo (n=31). It aims to highlight how Arab states attempted to coerce Egypt into specific policy decisions by targeting the Egyptian migrant communities within their borders. Overall, the article examines an under-discussed aspect of post-2011 Arab world politics, and makes the case for a more critical examination of regional migration management as firmly embedded in states’ decision-making processes.