Using the notion of a “geopolitics of mobility” this paper argues that international borders are more porous to capital than to displaced bodies. Juxtaposing these two levels of mobility generates two distinct but related geographies. Mobility is also theorized by seeing how colonial, Cold War, and ethno-nationalist struggles have shaped people's histories of migration, and by examining displaced groups in a context cognizant of both cultural and political difference as well as material relations of power. Focusing on the relationship between Europe and the Horn of Africa, especially movement of Somali peoples, the paper shows that a colonialism of derision has been transformed into a colonialism of compassion.