Abstract With border screening at the core of the ‘New Pact on Migration and Asylum’, the European Commission presents the effective triage of mixed migration as a trump card to finally fix the dysfunctional Common European Asylum System (CEAS). This calls for a closer examination of how triage governmentality relates to dysfunctionality as a trope in the European Union’s (EU) asylum policy. The article shows how, in the last three decades of policymaking, EU actors have consistently represented the CEAS as dysfunctional. One of the core problems put forward is that the EU’s common standards of qualification, procedures, and reception have failed to harmonize how persons in need of protection are identified and treated across the EU. The resulting asylum lottery undermines the legitimacy and efficacy of the EU’s allocation and return systems. Can the effective triage of mixed migration render the CEAS functional? This article argues that, in the design of the CEAS, triage mechanisms are key to reconciling the competing objectives of asylum protection and migration control. As implementation falls short, a gap has emerged between promises and results within triage governmentality.