US, Canada and Mexico rollout border plans

World Peace Herald ^ | June 28, 2005 | Shaun Waterman

[hedgetrimmer]

The United States and its North American neighbors say they will set up a trusted traveler scheme for the whole continent by 2008, and will this year develop a plan to respond together to major terror attacks and other incidents.

Trusted traveler programs enable people who provide biometric personal data -- like fingerprints or iris scans -- pay a fee and submit to background checks to use special travel lanes at border crossings.

The idea is to speed processing for those travelers not thought security risks, and whose identity can be verified biometrically.

A Department of Homeland Security statement Monday said that air and sea ports would also be included.

The program, first unveiled last week at a House panel by homeland security official Elaine Dezenski, would incorporate both NEXUS and SENTRI -- the two trusted traveler programs currently run at the U.S. border.

DHS spokesman Russ Knocke told United Press International that details of the scheme -- including whether it would employ biometrics -- have yet to be finalized, but added that biometrics was "the direction everything's moving in, identity-wise."

Answering reporters' questions about the scheme in Ottawa Monday, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said "the way forward ultimately, not just with respect to North America, but with respect to the world, is biometrics."

The program is part of a hugely ambitious initiative launched by President Bush, Mexican President Vincente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin on March 23 this year, following their summit at the president's Crawford, Texas ranch.

Ultimately, the Security and Prosperity Partnership for North America, as it is called, aims to standardize border admissions procedures -- watchlist checks, visa processing and document standards -- to the point where "all travelers arriving in North America will experience a comparable level of screening," according to a homeland security fact sheet.

The program was announced Monday following a meeting in Ottawa, Canada, between Chertoff and his opposite numbers -- Mexican Interior Secretary Carlos Abascal and Canadian Deputy Prime Minister for Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Anne McLellan.

The three were joined by U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, Canadian Minister of Industry David Emerson and Mexican Secretary of the Economy Fernando Canales.

The meeting, the first in a series of planned follow-ons to the March summit, also agreed that the three nations would work towards "compatible biometric border and immigration systems," announced the elimination of a series of regulatory barriers and other impediments to cross-border commerce, and committed to a comprehensive plan for responding together to major terror attacks and other incidents.

Within 12 months, the fact sheet says, the three nations will have established "protocols for incident management that impact border operations (and for) maritime incidents, cross-border public health emergencies and cross-border law enforcement response."

Co-operation on incident response will also include "interoperable communications systems" and joint preparedness exercises, including one ahead of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

The United States and Mexico also agreed to form joint intelligence-sharing task forces along their border "to target criminal gang and trafficking organizations."

The three countries also committed to work towards "compatible criteria for the posting of lookouts of suspected terrorists and criminals" and "real time information sharing on high risk individuals and cargos."

This last element of the plans may prove controversial in Canada, where public opinion seems concerned that a closer security relationship with the United States might jeopardize Canada's traditionally welcoming attitude toward asylum seekers or require an unnerving degree of information sharing.

The case of Maher Arar has dramatized Canadian concerns about counter-terror cooperation. Arar is a Syrian-born Canadian citizen who was shipped to Syria -- where he was tortured -- by U.S. authorities after Canadian intelligence identified him to them as a suspected associate of a suspected terrorist.

"The real time sharing of information with U.S. security agencies about a foreigner visiting Vancouver with no intention of entering the United States seems certain to cause a stir," opined the Toronto Globe and Mail earlier this year, adding that just such transparency would be necessary to the most ambitious visions of a common U.S.-Canadian security frontier.

In Mexico, attention is fixed on different questions about the partnership -- which Mexican officials refer to as the Security, Prosperity and Quality of Life Partnership.

"Why has the initiative not included funding provisions for reducing the economic gap between Mexico and the United States and Canada?" asked a Mexican reporter of Chertoff and Gutierrez.

[hedgetrimmer]

The program is part of a hugely ambitious initiative launched by President Bush, Mexican President Vincente Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin on March 23 this year, following their summit at the president's Crawford, Texas ranch.

It is nothing less that full integration with Mexico and Canada, with a new set of rules developed by unelected to impose on the American people.

[hedgetrimmer]

U.S. Department of Homeland Security Chief Michael Chertoff

"Why has the initiative not included funding provisions for reducing the economic gap between Mexico and the United States and Canada?" asked a Mexican reporter of Chertoff and Gutierrez.

[cripplecreek]

A couple of years ago Vincente Fox was in Canada for some sort of economic summit. While there he made some comment to the effect that sometimes governments must do things for the good of the people eve if the people don't like it.


You have your orders, you know what to do. Bend over and take it.

[steveegg]

Notably absent is any plan to deal with the invasion from Mexico.

[deadrock]

Someone somewhere is smoking crack! The US should be erecting a 15 ft electric fence around its perimeter - not expanding into these vagabond countries. Crazy!

[hedgetrimmer]

Canada, the United States and Mexico are committing to much broader and deeper economic and security integration to eliminate what Industry Minister David Emerson calls the "tyranny of small differences." The sheer scope of the plan, released Monday by senior ministers from the three trading partners, defies easy description.

The proposals range from the mundane to the highly controversial: finding common specifications for dangerous goods containers, for example; and developing common biometric travel documents and visa requirements.

Only four questions were fielded during the hour-long event.

"Does anybody representing the public interest get anywhere near the process?"

http://www.canada.com/nanaimo/story.html?id=aed4d016-c7c0-4dba-a779-5ef06ab0dc79

Does the United State Constitution represent one of those tyrannical "small differences" that must be eliminated?

[hedgetrimmer]

Comments by David Chertoff:

Second, we want to encourage the development of a unified trusted traveler approach to security. We now have NEXUS, we have SENTRY, we have FAST. All of these are ways in which people can enroll in a program that will allow them to move rapidly and conveniently between and among our countries and inside of North America and outside of North America with a single set of documents that will be a common standard for making sure that the people can be trusted.

http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/display?content=4558

Eliminate US passports and replace them with "integrated, common standard" documents? What does that mean?

[Archon of the East]

Kissing America goodbye. Damn, I really want to like President Bush but until he puts this globalization in the dung heap where it belongs I just can't see him as a great president. Though I seriously doubt he's pulling the strings. We need to elect American Conservative's.

[hedgetrimmer]

FYI

[Archon of the East]

Notably absent is any plan to deal with the invasion from Mexico.

Its becoming obvious that the plan isn't to discourage but encourage the invasion.

[AnimalLover]

Bump to read later

[Wolfhound777]

There is nothing about this that is good. Nothing.

[neutrino]

It is nothing less that full integration with Mexico and Canada, with a new set of rules developed by unelected to impose on the American people.

Just what we need. More illegal immigration, more illegal immigrants, and more elimination of our national sovereignty. (/bitter sarcasm)

[bayourod]

Where do you get that? It's simply a measure to increase security.

[xjcsa]

The Mexican President's name is Vicente Fox. That's V-I-C-E-N-T-E. One "n", not two. And I know it's in the original; it's not you. Seems they could at least spell the man's name right though.

[Archon of the East]

Only four questions were fielded during the hour-long event.

Suspiciously absent has been our beloved media from any discussion on this topic, oh they'll distract us with Kitty Kelly and Hate Bush stories, Turban Durban, Fraudulent election fraud stories and others. But what is more important than preserving America and it principles? Are we too caught up in the smaller issues and letting the real fight pass us by?

[jeremiah]

You know that this is simply a move away from sovereignty, and towards the new-world order. Ole' Bush talks about he importance of Iraq sovereignty, while giving ours away. He has no plans to enforce the borders, because there will be no borders by 2008.

[ZULU]

"Trusted traveler programs enable people who provide biometric personal data -- like fingerprints or iris scans -- pay a fee and submit to background checks to use special travel lanes at border crossings. "

Yeah?? Well what about WHO or WHAT our "Trusted travellers" might be transporting in thier vehicles??

I have had it with pandering to the Mexicanos and Senor Fox.

I hope Tancredo runs. We need to REDUCE border crossings, not increase them.

As for the Canadians, a lot of them HATE us - especially the Canadian Frogs. Screw them. Let them wait. Right now I'd never visit those rascals up there.

[ZULU]

"Trusted traveler programs enable people who provide biometric personal data -- like fingerprints or iris scans -- pay a fee and submit to background checks to use special travel lanes at border crossings. "

Yeah?? Well what about WHO or WHAT our "Trusted travellers" might be transporting in thier vehicles??

I have had it with pandering to the Mexicanos and Senor Fox.

I hope Tancredo runs. We need to REDUCE border crossings, not increase them.

As for the Canadians, a lot of them HATE us - especially the Canadian Frogs. Screw them. Let them wait. Right now I'd never visit those rascals up there.

[bayourod]

SEALING THE BORDER HAS BEEN PROVEN IMPOSSIBLE

We tried to seal 66 miles of the border in 1994 in “Operation Gate Keeper” designed by the military. It incorporated double and triple fences (some concrete and steel), guard towers, flood lights infrared cameras, ground sensors, patrol roads, horse patrols, ATV patrols, 16 helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles, trucks, and a ratio of 32 guards per mile.

If it was successful the plan was to extend it from San Diego to El Paso. It wasn’t successful at all. See Inspector General’s Report: "experienced agents were estimating it was only 5-10 percent effective"

About two hundred thousand are caught each year trying to cross, and another estimated 30 to 40 thousand make it across undetected. They dig under, climb over and break through the fences.

That’s an average of 454 to 606 per mile per year. Extrapolated just to the 2000 mile Mexican border that would be about 1.2 million border jumpers per year. And we would still have the ones who enter from Canada or by air and water or legally on temporary visas and don’t return.