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Irregular migration represents a multifaceted challenge across all major receiving regions. Unauthorised border crossings have increasingly dominated public and political debates, which remain deeply divided between security imperatives and humanitarian obligations. On the one hand, prominent receiving states increasingly rely on externalisation, which frequently involves bilateral partnerships, aid conditionality, offshore processing mechanisms in third countries, and heightened surveillance of transit corridors. On the other, concerns persist that such measures may compromise the right to asylum and refugee protection, while inadvertently driving undocumented migrants further underground within destination states. How do destination countries reconcile the friction between national security and humanitarian responsibilities? What mechanisms are being implemented across receiving states worldwide, what are the latest developments, and what are their broader ramifications? This panel brings together research exploring the governance of irregular migration in its widest sense and with the broadest geographical scope. It provides timely and innovative analysis focusing on foreign and security policies, migration diplomacy, externalisation initiatives, refugee protection, and domestic policy responses. The contributing papers examine this complex phenomenon through diverse theoretical, methodological, and analytical lenses, offering fresh, multidisciplinary perspectives on a critical twenty-first century phenomenon.