The current immigration policy of the United States is one of the most severe and restrictive policies to date. But the limitations associated with such a strict policy may lead to big problems on the U.S.-Canada border.

Earlier this year, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said in order to manage immigration more effectively, the actions being taken on the Mexican border should also be taken on to the Canadian border.

On Thursday, Nov. 12, Western’s Border Policy Research Institute and the Center for Canadian American Studies hosted a forum titled “Immigration Reform: What’s at Stake for the Northern Border.”

The forum featured speakers Margaret Stock and Edward Alden.

Stock is a visiting professor from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and expert on immigration policy for the U.S. Army.  Alden is the project director for the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations’ Task Force on U.S. Immigration Policy and author of “Closing the American Border: Terrorism, Immigration and Security Since 9/11.”

Alden and Stock said U.S. immigration policy focuses too heavily on problems associated with the southern border, while neglecting the northern border.

Cooperation between the U.S. and Canada has become even more of a focus as the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics near.

“The Olympics is a big immigration problem, because whenever you have an Olympics you are bringing thousands of people from all around the world in to one location,” Stock said.

It will benefit the U.S. economy if Olympic travelers visit Bellingham or Seattle, but if they feel like it will be too much of a barrier to cross the border than they might not want to go, Stock said.

In order to have good security, the U.S. needs to have a vibrant economy and keep people employed, Stock said.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 sought to improve U.S. immigration policy through worksite enforcement, increased border security and granting legalization to illegal immigrants who have lived in the U.S. since Jan. 1, 1982.

“People point back to the 1986 amnesty, and they say, ‘that didn’t work; we shouldn’t do that again’,” Stock said.

Stock said the U.S. needs a way to allow people to come into the country legally and allow temporary and permanent workers to come here somewhat easily— a component that was left out of the 1986 act.

“We have to be able to facilitate travel and immigration into the U.S. [of] people [we] do want and need, or [we will] do lasting damage to the country,” Alden said.

Alden said the U.S. is putting all its effort and money into keeping people out, and forgetting about allowing people in who could have a positive effect on the country.

“For the secretary of Homeland Security to say both should be managed the same way... you could actually make things worse by trying to manage the Canadian border the same way you are managing the Mexican one,” Stock said.

Stock said the relationship the U.S. has with Canada is much different than its relationship with Mexico.

While some attempts at cooperation between the U.S. and Mexico have occurred, the U.S. does not have the same trust with Mexican authorities, Stock said. 

“You can’t have an atmosphere of corruption,” Stock said.  “Mexico has been having some pretty big problems in its law enforcement. And Canada doesn’t have the same level of issues.”

Don Alper, director of the Research Institute, also attributes the openness of the border to the strong interdependencies that have been established between the people of the U.S. and Canada as a result of cultural-likeness.

“If we have a wall outside of San Diego, it doesn’t mean we should have one outside of Bellingham, just on principal,” Stock said.

She said if the U.S. were to apply the same immigration tactics to the northern border that it does to the south, it would be detrimental to the U.S. economy.

The northern and southern borders also differ in relation to the Integrated Border Enforcement Team program—a binational partnership comprised of both Canadian and U.S. law enforcement agencies.

The program works to intercept potential threats of terrorism and stop the trafficking of people and contraband along the northern border.

Although the teams are proving to be successful up north, they would not be as effective on the southern border, Stock said.

“One of the reasons [the program] works well [on the northern border] is because there is a high degree of trust between American and Canadian law enforcement,” Stock said.

Because this type of trust does not exist on the southern border, Stock said the U.S. needs to build a common-sense framework that will fit the conditions of each border individually.

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