Geographical research into migrants’ use of transnational space has contributed towards the materialization of a purely metaphorical construct. A largely separate literature on borders has sought to ‘transnationalize’ the border by identifying how control practices move away from the physical border line. This paper brings these developing approaches together. The various ways in which state institutions attempt to control transnational relations require some account of control mechanisms that surpass the state’s current territorial limits. Three techniques of control are identified from the literature review – physical, symbolic and imaginative. These are explored in two case studies.