Studies on the association between spatial planning and local NIMBY responses dating back to the late 1970s have focused on NIMBY mobilizations against various unwanted facilities, with less attention to NIMBY responses to refugee accommodation units. This article seeks to examine the role of the implementation of a ‘top-down’ system of migration governance and the influence of the media in the emergence of NIMBY mobilizations against refugee accommodation facilities. To this end, it adopts a socio-spatial approach, perceiving space as a specific sociological concept and a non-autonomous interpretative parameter of the social dynamics, distinguishing the logics of production and appropriation of space. Furthermore, adopting a Lefebvrian perspective, it explores the effects of the ad hoc siting of refugee camps as representational spaces, at the level of both collective spatial representations and spatial practices through the lens of the media. To achieve the research aim, it employs analysis of secondary data related to refugee arrivals and the distribution of refugees in the accommodation units, and document analysis of 50 national and local press publications. It contributes to the academic debate on spatial planning and the sociology of space, highlighting NIMBY opposition as an urban social movement claiming information and involvement in the decision-making process.