Following superior orders or the crowd are commonly used excuses to avoid responsibility. Taking the case of border control in Hungary, this article explores how such inauthenticity can shape police professional identity and practice, both in the Sartrean and Heideggerian sense. It is interested in how police officers 1) have denied their freedom of choice in the face of their role expectations, and 2) have fallen prey to political discourse and anti-immigrant public sentiment. Interestingly, most participants in the study used the phrase “I am just following orders” only in relation to their mandatory deployment at the border but not regarding the ill-treatment of irregular migrants. The concept of excessive use of force no longer appeared to be applicable; physical abuse of migrants has become the norm and standard practice. The findings seem to suggest that officers have been overtaken and driven by public attitudes towards mass migration. The article argues that the real threat to authentic role play does not stem from a desire or temptation to conform. Rather, it manifests itself in dominant discourses that reinterpret the purpose of policing, thus underpinning
the self-understanding of officers.