A Border Is Not a Wall

As Elia Zureik and Mark B. Salter explain in a book on policing, a controlled border creates the notion that domestic space is safe. This idea of safety is so potent that it has shut down the United States government. “Rather than being used as political boundaries, such constructions, including the Great Wall built in the Qin Empire, served more as defensive barriers, a basis for further expansion, and a platform for the control and regulation of the flow of goods and people,” writes the political scientist Manlio Graziano in What Is a Border?