The militarization of islands and migration: Tracing human mobility through US bases in the Caribbean and the Pacific

•We examine US migration control in the Caribbean and Pacific in the 1970s and 1980s.•Confinement of people on island military bases is an imperial process of ruination.•Government categorization of mobile people informs their treatment in these sites.•Spatial patterns of militarization operate through enforcement and confinement.

In this paper, we argue that the confinement of people on island military bases, whether narrated as humanitarian rescue, migration management, refugee resettlement, or militarized border enforcement, is an imperial process of ruination that impairs human possibility and erodes access to rights. Furthermore, the government's categorization of mobile people – as refugees, displaced, detainees, or migrants – informs the naming of these spaces, the bureaucratic and legal processes that they are subjected to, and their treatment (by local communities, federal authorities, the media, and the law). Empirical material is drawn from qualitative research conducted on US migration control in the Caribbean and Pacific. We identify spatial patterns of militarization operating across these sites, wherein migration is intertwined with enforcement, confinement, and militarization.