Boomerangs Of Empire: Latin America As A Colonial Laboratory

News Americas examines how tactics of imperial domination tested abroad are now reshaping the United States

Mar. 21, 2026 at 12:19pm

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This article explores how methods of state repression and violence that were once used in Latin America are now being deployed within the United States, a phenomenon described as the 'boomerang effect' of colonialism. The piece examines how the Prison Industrial Complex, Military Industrial Complex, and algorithmic surveillance systems operate as a single apparatus that manages dissent, migration, and everyday life, and how popular resistance is emerging to protect targeted communities and reaffirm social rights. The article traces this machinery across borders and centuries, from border militarization and migrant criminalization to ecological extraction, highlighting how colonization reduces life into a 'thingification' that can be sorted, priced, and extracted.

Why it matters

This article is significant because it shows how tactics of imperial domination tested in Latin America are now being used within the United States, reflecting a 'boomerang effect' of colonialism. It examines how repressive systems and technologies have become transferable and interoperable, reshaping societies that invented them. Understanding this dynamic is crucial for interrupting the architectures of technofascism and foregrounding the counter-methods of resistance.

The details

The article explores how the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC) and Military Industrial Complex (MIC) now operate as a single apparatus that manages dissent, migration, and everyday life through racialized logistics, infrastructures, industries, and algorithmic computing. It provides examples of how this machinery functions across borders, such as how aerospace regulation reconfigures a coastal commons into a service corridor, how engineered water surges reprogram a river into a weapon, and how the colonial grid persists as a sorting machine for contemporary policing and repression. The piece also examines how the racial hierarchies that justified 'development' in Latin America now govern U.S. agricultural fields through the H-2A visa program, and how the border has become a transnational algorithmic infrastructure where mutual aid and community organizing fill the voids left by state neglect.

  • The article was published on March 21, 2026.
  • It examines events that have occurred since President Donald J. Trump assumed office in January 2025.

The players

Juan José Martínez Cortes

A father who was kidnapped by masked federal agents while waiting to pick up his child from school in San Diego.

Ambrocio Lozano (known as Enrique)

A paletero (ice cream vendor) who became the subject of protests demanding his release after disappearing.

Andry Hernández Romero

A Venezuelan gay makeup artist who was arrested in South Carolina and sent to the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT) in El Salvador, where he was held for 125 days until his release as part of a prisoner swap.

Aimé Césaire

A poet and theorist whose work on the 'boomerang effect' of colonialism is central to the article's analysis.

Jerónimo Reyes-Retana

A contributor who shows how space-industry routines reconfigure the lives of fishermen and marine species in the Gulf of Mexico.

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What’s next

The article does not mention any clear next steps or future newsworthy moments related to the story.

The takeaway

This article highlights how tactics of imperial domination tested in Latin America are now being deployed within the United States, creating a 'boomerang effect' of colonialism. It is crucial to understand this dynamic in order to interrupt the architectures of technofascism and foreground the counter-methods of resistance emerging to protect targeted communities and reaffirm social rights.