Border securocracy: Global expansion of the U.S. Department of homeland security bureaucratic apparatus before, during and beyond covid-19

Abstract

The U.S. border security apparatus is moving around the globe as climate change, the coronavirus pandemic and corporatization create political and economic chaos. Global north governments seek to keep out migrants and refugees from the global south while corporations in the global north want protection to maintain their wealth. U.S. government bureaucratic agencies such as Custom and Border Protection’s Border Patrol Tactical Unit are sent abroad to expand U.S. influence in an empire of borders to train receptive government security and border forces and to regulate, detain and prevent migrants and refugees well beyond the U.S. border. Governments are waging war against the people, creating a “securocracy” comprised of profit seeking military arms corporations and allied government agents to quell resistance and border crossers. Examined are the effects and impacts of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on global border securocracy beginning with an analysis of the Mexico-U.S. border, moving to international borders in Latin America and beyond. The theoretical concept of border securocracy is expanded from the securocracy literature in the context of the north versus south globalization conflict.