A large literature on immigration has explored attitudes toward refugees from the prism of theories of distributive or cultural conflict in the domestic political economy. Less is known about the impact of international factors, including inter-state conflict over territory. Refugees and other migrants must often cross disputed borders, which raises concerns over national sovereignty in countries with unresolved territorial claims. We explore spillovers of border disputes into the realm of immigration when natives perceive that a regional adversary uses migrant flows strategically to pursue foreign policy goals. We analyze experimental data from Cyprus, where the legacy of the island’s de facto partition since 1974 permeates all aspects of politics. We test whether the increased salience of unresolved territorial conflict with Turkey shapes attitudes toward migrants who cross a disputed boundary and find evidence in support of that hypothesis when natives perceive migrants as an instrument of Turkey’s foreign policy.