We cannot understand Mediterranean migration and border control without considering maritime mobility conflicts. It is only by thinking with and through conflict that we understand the functionality as well as the dysfunctionality, failures, and fallibility of the EU border regime. Whether people on the move reach their desired destinations, are rescued, intercepted, pushed back, abandoned, or killed, is determined by conflicts over mobility that often involve a complex and changing assemblage of actors. This intervention examines what I call migrant manoeuvres, thus acts of evasion, negotiation, and confrontation that take place in Mediterranean encounters. While central antagonisms between movement and deterrence, between freedom and force, underwrite these encounters, their outcomes are not predetermined. By paying close attention to how mobility conflicts unfold, we can see how frictions and tensions are continuously exploited for a politics of escape.