"This paper problematizes the situation of vulnerable migrants, in particular, that ofrefugees and asylum seekers in Southeast Asia as against policy pronouncements towards a people-centered ASEAN. As a case in point, the paper highlights the so-called Boat People Crisis of 2015 and argues that the events that lead to and resulted from it reveal a situation ofhyper-precarity, as well as a crisis of and for human security. Additionally, the paper offersJudith Butler’s notion of an ethic of cohabitation as a means of substantiating claims for a people-centered community. From Visions of a ‘People-Centered’ Community to PrecarityMany trace the emergence of visions for a ‘people-centered’ ASEAN community to the development of human security or otherwise less state-centric approaches to security in the region. As early as the 1960s, Indonesia’s concept of ketahanan nasional or national resilience, Malaysia under Mahathir, and Singapore’s notion of Total Defence, all embrace a concept of security that goes beyond the military dimension to incorporate political, economicand socio-cultural dimensions (Caballero-Anthony, 2004: 160). Nishikawa argues that suchformulations were still essentially state-centric because protecting territory and resourcesfrom internal and external threats continue to be the main concerns for Southeast Asiancountries as a result of its postcolonial experiences. Nonetheless, since the 2004 VientianneAction Programme (VAP), which outlines ASEAN’s program of actions towards the creationof an ASEAN Security Community (ASC), Nishikawa agrees that there has been a move awayfrom a traditional military definition of security towards a more a more people- centeredapproach (Nishikawa, 2009: 217)..."