The Canadians are upset that Janet Napolitano requested a review of US-Canada border security. Even though terrorists and the anthrax traveler came into America via lax and/or unguarded Canadian ports of entry, Canada is saying they do not want to be treated like Mexico.Napolitano calms fears on Canada-U.S. border review
OTTAWA -- U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano sought to assure Canadians on Friday that a recent review of U.S-Canada border security was simply a fact-finding exercise, not necessarily a prelude to tougher border measures. In an unusual step, Ms. Napolitano held a teleconference with Canadian reporters, and expressed concern some of the media coverage north of the border had "misconstrued" the purpose of the review.
"While I'm very familiar with the border with Mexico, given that I was the governor of Arizona, I have very little actual experience with the Canadian border, and I wanted to get a sense on where we stood up there."
Ms. Napolitano declined to give an assessment of security at the border, other than to say it is a "big border" with some "sparsely populated" areas.
She said she'd like to visit the border first before jumping to any conclusions. Some experts on the Canada-U.S. border security have recently expressed concern that the review could lead to a "thickening" of the border.
"While I'm very familiar with the border with Mexico, given that I was the governor of Arizona, I have very little actual experience with the Canadian border, and I wanted to get a sense on where we stood up there."
Ms. Napolitano declined to give an assessment of security at the border, other than to say it is a "big border" with some "sparsely populated" areas.
She said she'd like to visit the border first before jumping to any conclusions. Some experts on the Canada-U.S. border security have recently expressed concern that the review could lead to a "thickening" of the border.
Good to hear that she is concerned about both of our borders. When she realizes how porous they both are, I hope she does the right thing for our nation and secures both of them once and for all. There is no reason that Mexico and/or Canada should object to what we do to secure our nation's borders. It has nothing to do with them and nothing to do with not being a nice neighbor. Afterall most of us have fences around our own yards. We can do what we damn well please on our side of the line and we should. Legal ports of entry have already been established so we are not essentially walling ourselves off as the open borders nuts try to claim. Every nation should secure it's borders. A nation without secure borders ceases to be a nation.
ReplyDeleteCanadians in general were not upset over this. The Prime Minister even admitted in the article that Canada takes their border security just as seriously as our country does. This was also in the article and makes sense to implement.
ReplyDeleteSeparately, Ms. Napolitano said she and U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton have signed off on the implementation of the next step in the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which will require that Canadians entering the U.S. by land or sea show a passport or other "approved secure" document as of June 1.
Treat the Canucks in the same manner as they do the Mexicans! There's no difference!
ReplyDeleteUps! Wait a minute! I forgot! Canadians are mostly white and speak English, despite having a Muslim population of over 15%... And of course a Muslim would never ever never think of harming the good ol Newnited States of Amerika!
The difficulty on the Canadian border is its extreme length permeated by major bodies of water that facilitate illegal entry. Still our policy should be even handed and violators of either border should be subject to the same penalties.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, it is also a fact that resources are always limited and therefore they must be used in the most efficacious way that we can. To me, this means focusing those limited resources where they will do the most good, that is in proportion to the perceived volume of violations on each border. As Pcorn suggests there is also something to be said regarding the relatively large number of Muslims in Canada but of course that would be racial profiling in some sense, wouldn't it. There will be no solution to this problem until another terrorist incident occurs and Napolitano wakes up to the fact that one illegal is one too many. We need to carefully vet every foreign worker and limit them to the precise number we need.
Pcorn acts as if there is something terribly unusual about birds of a feather flocking together. While that does not justify the uneven application of the law, it is pretty clear that the law is not being applied much of anywhere. There are 12 million reasons for that conclusion. The question might be: "How many of them are Canadians?" I wonder how he would deploy limited resources if he had the job of improving border security. Of course, such a job would have no appeal for an open borders advocate.
ReplyDeleteNapolitano may turn out to be the most disastrous Secretary of DHS we could ever imagine. Between her and Obama any semblance of national sovereignty will be destroyed through a blanket amnesty, a failure of internal enforcement, and the open borders that will surely be the result.
ReplyDeleteSome things to think about, really:
ReplyDelete1) Canadians are not allowed to have guns, really - go into most homes, you will not find one
2) Canadians make enough money and really unless someone has enough money or is from a former British colony - you cannot travel here - so the worry about terrorists is pretty moot.
3) Canadians are educated, mobilized and have resources to cross the border where ever we wanted - and guess what, the only ones who sneak across are trying to buy something at a store and go back.
4) Canadian poor there have it good - Rent, Medical, Food, Transportation, Dental, Optical, Furniture, all can and usually are paid for by welfare.
So why, really would you even need to guard the border, really?