AMERICA is outsourcing its border patrol abroad-and essentially expanding its borders in the process

The twenty-first century has been an era of hardening borders-increased borderland patrols, surveillance, and militarization are widening the chasm between those who can vacation (or do business) where they please, among others whose movements are restricted by armed guards. But as journalist Todd Miller finds in Empire of Edges, the U.S. boundary is also becoming increasingly fluid, expanding a large number of miles beyond U.S. territory often to safeguard Washington’s interests.

In locations like Argentina, Kosovo, Honduras, Jordan, and Afghanistan, U.S. border patrol works alongside local brokers to stop migrants, terrorists, drug athletes, and smugglers from ever approaching the U.S. Empire of Borders traces the rise of this border routine, along with methods of ‘severe vetting’ as well as the vast global sector for boundary and homeland protection. But in visiting the Jordan/Syria boundary, as well as Puerto Rico, Guatemala, Kenya, Palestine, Mexico, as well as the Philippines, Miller discovers instead a global war against the indegent.