In this intervention, I aim to unsettle a geopolitical imaginary of sovereignty that seems to dominate European (Critical) Migration Studies’ accounts of the externalisation of the EU border regime. In the wake of the so-called refugee crisis, the EU has intensified its efforts to outsource and displace the control of its borders. In relation to Africa, this is today taking place within the Valletta process and the related Migration Partnerships. I briefly introduce some aspects of these policy frameworks in the first section of the text. I then point to an omission in the scholarly analyses of externalisation. The geographical displacement of European borders tends to be presented as a new phenomenon, even as an unprecedented or ›post-Westphalian‹ transformation of territorial sovereignty. Hereby Europe’s colonial past is ›forgotten‹. Drawing on authors committed to decolonisation as well as on migrant and citizen movements’ critiques, I argue that we should question the Westphalian imaginary of (Critical) Migration Studies. This imaginary of sovereignty tends to produce flawed analyses and reproduce imperialist complicities. I also briefly suggest some alternative lines of analysing the current ›drawing of European borders‹ on the African continent.