Abstract This study explores the cross-border life of mainland Chinese dual migrants in Macao. "Dual migrants" are individuals who have left family and friends in other provinces of China, and migrate daily across a regulated, political border; in this case the border lies between Zhuhai (in mainland China for residence) and Macao (for work). In total 24 low-skilled mainland Chinese dual migrant participants (13 male security guards; 11 female cleaners) were recruited and engaged in in-depth interviews, group discussions and WeChat interviews. Findings show the co-existence of temporality and situatedness in their physical experiences. Home is found to be both an emotional and social investment, tied to a fixed, remembered space, and a mobile, multi-layered, and unstable site, impacted by the experience of daily cross-border mobility. The Zhuhai-Macao border is constructed as an important entity in participants' everyday life; the border is also an ambivalent and liminal space, serving the role of both connectivity and detachment. Participants may self-identify as "outsiders" to Macao, who "belong" to a place in mainland China due to perceived hierarchy and discrimination in Macao society. However, this identification is fluid and dynamic, and changes within and across social groupings and settings. Mainland Chinese dual migrants, on the one hand, are found to be in vulnerable conditions suffering precarity, loneliness, discrimination and toil in cross-border life. On the other hand, they seek for digital empowerment built upon their structured agency (e.g., not well-educated and low-skilled dual migrants from the mainland). WeChat, a social networking site available on mobile phones, is perceived as a digital mediated space affording solidarity, conviviality, cognizance and monetization. Explicated as digital heterotopias, mainland Chinese dual migrants enjoyably seek online support, pleasure and information via WeChat. However, participants' online separation from Macao locals, analogous to their offline practice, indicates no likelihood of integration into the new environment. The incorporated offline-online performance shows the coping strategies participants develop to adapt new environments, which contributes to the understanding of migration and adaptation within Information and Communications Technology (ICT) based communication.