This framework paper intends to construct the 2015 “migration crisis” as a scientific object, moving away from the naturalisation of the crisis operated in media and political discourses and rather exploring the dynamics of migration crisis-making. To do so, it offers a insights on the semantic and political genealogy of the notion in the context of Western European discourses. We argue that an ideal type or generic “migration crisis” was brought about in the early 2010s, building upon previous situated crises in discourses produced on migration. This ideal type is constructed as a category of power, which in turn gives way to particular ways of dealing with and responding to migration. Therefore, in line with previous work, this paper adopts a constructivist stance on crises that seeks to investigate “migration as crisis” in policy, media and academic discourses.