After reading about the origins of maritime interdiction in Kahn’s piece, I cannot say that I am surprised at the extent countries with power will go to in order to discretely avoid an issue. The origins of patrolling the seas and interjecting people before they even got to sea is something that comes with entitlement, and this entitlement comes from countries with power. Maritime interdiction is used as an intervention tactic to covertly impede migration efforts without ever having to worry about the laws pertaining to refugees. The question of who owns and has rights to patrolling the seas belong to those who have power. Powerful, rich countries are able to carry the personnel to interject and seize boats of migrants seeking refuge. By creating new, imaginary borders in the sea powerful nations are able to avoid the laws which apply to them on land. The borderscape as defined by Perera serves as a mobile, unstable and racialized border. By creating a system of power in the seas, countries effectively extend their power and thwart any chance the migrants have for a new life.

The origins of patrolling at sea, originally had a racialized agenda which still persists to this day. Due to their ‘undesirable’ do to the fact that they were black, uneducated, diseased, improvised and non-English speaking, they were immediately judged and viewed as deservingness of refugee or immigrant status in the United States. This is a sharp comparison to the treatment of refugees from Cuba, an island who is less than 400 miles away. In the early 1950s Cubans sought refuge during the Cuban Revolution in Miami by the droves but this group of refugees were lighter, well educated, and many spoke English making them desirable and ‘worthy’ of entry to the United States. Hidden policies which do not adhere to land laws are extremely detrimental and leave castaway boats and bodies in its wake.