This article presents narratives of the Senegalese migration project to the Basque Country in Spain, exploring two main ideas. First, the ways in which different structural and socio-cultural elements meet in global connections and play a part in the migration project's (re)production are examined. Second, an attempt is put forth to understand how these same socio-cultural elements are present in the migrant's defence, on both a discursive and a practical level, against Spanish legislation's continuous attempts at 'illegalising' his presence in the country. By drawing on migrants' own accounts of Senegalese gender roles, social networks and cultural tropes, I argue that it is the migrant's own sociocultural capital that is used in his attempt to stay afloat in the crisis-ridden Spanish economy.