Several member states of the Schengen free-travel area recently introduced temporary controls at their national borders to control and limit irregular immigration. In the summer of 2024, Germany's decision to reinstate checks at all its borders led other member states to follow suit, thereby threatening the future of free travelling inside the Schengen area. While political elites claim that such measures reflect public demands, it remains unclear how supportive citizens actually are. In this paper, we therefore investigate public opinion on border controls, focusing on the trade-offs citizens are willing to accept for stricter immigration policies. We argue that citizens are more likely to support border controls if they experience minimal personal consequences. By contrast, citizens are less supportive when significant individual-level consequences arise, such as travel delays or disruptions in their daily work commute. We test our argument by conducting an observational and experimental study in Germany. With immigration numbers being continuously high and the topic showing strong political salience due to the federal election taking place in February 2024, Germany offers a particularly interesting case. Our findings have implications not only for discrepancies between elite communication and public opinion but also for immigration policies and the future of European integration.