Imagine the sort of metal police barricades you see at protests. These are unevenly lined up like so many crooked teeth on the Dominican Republic’s side of the river that acts as its border with Haiti. Like dazed versions of U.S. Border Patrol agents, the armed Dominican border guards sit at their assigned posts, staring at the opposite shore.
From the Dominican-Haitian borderlands to Ireland, the United States is internationalizing its boundary policing. In the process, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is creating the 21st century boundary, one that involves enrolling other countries in U.S. enforcement practices.