Nowhere is the precarity of the “right to have rights” as palpable as in the conditions for refugees to access a state. The reach of fundamental rights guarantees regularly hinges on the criterion of jurisdiction, laws and practices of hindering access can easily circumvent legal liability. And even where the legality is in doubt, the physical distance of potential claimants leaves most cases unchallenged. This quandary of legal guarantees towards asylum-seekers has been analyzed in depth, often coupled with an emphasis on the role of political processes for claiming rights. The paper looks at Jacques Rancière’s conception of political contestation, arguing that it takes the co-presence of persons as implicit premise and does not account for the situation of distant claimants. To accept co-presence as prerequisite of political processes of contestation seems not convincing as co-presence is itself conditioned by legal rules. Against the background of this theoretical puzzle, the paper examines three recent court cases from Europe, which concerned territorial access and the reach of fundamental rights guarantees: the case Hirsi Jamaa et al v. Italy (ECtHR Grand Chamber decision 2012), the case X. and X. v. Belgium (ECJ decision in March 2017), and the case N.D. and N.T. v. Spain (ECtHR chamber decision in October 2017). It traces how the reach of the law was debated in these decisions and the accompanying opinions, and argues on that basis that fundamental rights adjudication in border cases has a crucial role not only for assessing state practices legally, but also as a forum in which laws organizing presence and distance are addressed politically and rendered visible to the responsible publics.