In this article, I seek to examine how the legal and political changes introduced by the European Union’s New Pact on Migration and Asylum enhance the legal protection of refugees and asylum seekers fleeing to the EU territory across the central Mediterranean migration route. Empirically drawing on the discourse of the European Commission representatives and the discourse around the new Pact on Migration and Asylum, I will engage in analyzing the EU’s human-focused narrative about migration management that the Pact promotes. The emphasis is put on how the dominant legal categories, in particular the category of