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This article draws upon three case studies to examine the differentiated consequences of migration and violence for activist trajectories. Indeed, the “bottom up” approach adopted here to address asylum seeking in Israel leads one to consider the role played by the violences of the exile and, in particular indefinite detention, on representations and practices of engagement among migrants. The notion of experience, rather than the one of ressources, allows one to understand how engagement and disengagement may develop over time and affect one’s mobilization. Addressing the memory of past struggles for asylum-seekers’ rights appears as another essential component of individual experience that explains the reasoning leading one to particular types of engagement. Comparing different migration, repression, and mobilization experiences reveals three types of engagement: a mobilization against injustice, a mobilization to demand respect for one’s rights and renunciation of the struggle.