This chapter explores the role of media discourse in shaping public attitudes and institutional responses to irregular migration in Lithuania during and after the 2021 border crisis. It examines how securitising and racialised narratives, underpinned by negative framing, strategic terminology, and state-disseminated messaging, legitimated extraordinary state actions, including pushbacks and prolonged detentions. Drawing on interview data, media analysis, and literature on framing and media, the chapter interrogates how political elites and media actors co-constructed a discourse of threat and moral panic. It also highlights the implications of self-censorship, restricted access to information, and elite discursive control on journalistic freedom. The stigmatisation of migrants was reinforced by the portrayal of activists and NGOs as treacherous agents, further marginalising humanitarian advocacy. In this environment, civil society organisations such as Sienos Grupe played a crucial role in data collection and narrative contestation. The chapter situates Lithuania within broader European trends of populist securitisation and media complicity in the erosion of refugee protections, while attending to the distinct geopolitical and discursive context of the Baltic region.