Migration has become an important topic in European political discourse. However, little is known about the determinants of migration discourse in the European Parliament. The added value of this thesis lies in the comparison of security speech acts and human security speech acts spoken by Members of the European Parliament in the 8th EU parliamentary term (2014 – 2019). This study also offers theoretical contributions by linking securitization and symbolic boundaries. Based on content analysis, I argue that a humanitarian approach prevails over a securitized one in the European Parliament. Further, my results confirm the importance of left-right orientation. The securitization of migration as a strategic practice is promoted by right-wing politicians, while a human security approach is suggested mainly from the left side of the political divide. Through critical discourse analysis, I also observed a strong interaction between sociocultural and moral, and, especially, between moral and legal, boundaries. As expected, sociocultural arguments are not such an important issue for human security actors in the migration debates at the European Parliament. Moreover, I argue, that solidifying and maintaining symbolic boundaries between migrants and non-migrants can be a consequence of the unconvincing and inconsistent argumentation among human security members of the European Parliament.