Border-policing has been the subject of increasing criminological concern in the US and Europe: however, it has garnered relatively little attention in Australia. This article addresses the federal border-policing effort that has contributed to policing out the refugee. It has done so through a focus on people-smuggling that has increasingly relied on public debate depicting people-smuggling as a matter of national security. The Australian Federal Police (AFP) has made significant contributions to debates that have considered people-smuggling a matter for law enforcement. This article argues that through an analysis of AFP reports we can trace how they have contributed to the construction of the people-smuggling problem. In drawing on international-relations theory, notably concepts of statecraft and transversality, the article concludes that the AFP has made a central contribution to a wider attack on refugee protection with far-reaching consequences for the nature of federal law enforcement.