The Tunisian coastal town of Zarzis sprawls on a wide strip of sand dotted with olive trees and elaborate villas, whose construction is largely funded by remittances from men working in France. Zarzis also boasts the last Tunisian port before the Libyan frontier, which lies 80km south. It is believed that “under Ben Ali, Tunisia’s sea border was the most secure in the entire Maghreb region” (Pro Asyl 2014). Despite changes in political leadership in the country since the 2011 revolution, the European Union has remained constant in the nature of its demands to Tunisia when it comes to border control. As a result, while in the months following the revolution Zarzis had turned into one of the main points of departure for the Italian island of Lampedusa, this period of openness did not last for long. Zarzis has since reverted to being strongly implicated in the production and policing of the EU’s border. This has not however prevented the young men belonging to the generation that was too young to leave in 2011 from seeking to do the "harga" - the burning of the frontier. At the same time, the town’s proximity to Libya also results in the presence of "rescapés" – people rescued in Tunisian waters while trying to reach Europe from Libya – and of the unidentified dead bodies of those who died on that same crossing. Based on 18 months ethnographic research in Zarzis, this paper will explore how migration is experienced and imagined by the inhabitants of this double frontier with the EU and Libya, and how this relates to people’s understandings of themselves and of the state. What is a good, ethical and dignified life for this borderland community? What is considered worth living for, and so worth dying for? How does the presence of both living and dead foreigners similarly constrained by the EU’s maritime border affect these understandings?