The situation at the EU's border with Belarus is but the last of a series of events showing the ever growing relevance of migration for the EU. Migration is the context in which more than anywhere else the EU’s core values have been put under strain by securitization and criminalization practices. A lot of ink has been spent to underline how the EU’s efforts to control immigration have enabled severe violations of human rights at its borders and beyond. The aim of this paper is to place this debate in the broader context of a normative reflection on the crisis of the liberal order. Blurring the divide between political theory and international relations, the paper identifies three different understandings of what a legitimate liberal policy of migration would be and explores which of these understanding is the most coherent with the EU’s historical developments and self-identification. It proceeds then analyzing the embedded legitimizing claims behind the the EU migration system of governance, compares the coherence of such claims with the EU’s self-identification, and eventually derives implications in terms of the EU’s stance in the liberal world order (and its crisis).