Video Summary

Speakers: Edward Alden (CFR) and Margaret Stock (BPRI)

• On November 12, 2009, Mr. Edward Alden and Ms. Margaret Stock addressed an audience of Border and Immigration specialists in a seminar entitled ‘Immigration Reform: What’s at Stake for the Northern Border’. Alden is a Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow at the Council for Foreign Relations (CFR) and is a former Washington bureau chief for the Financial Times.  Margaret Stock is a Visiting Fellow at Border Policy Research Institute (BPRI) at Western Washington University. Both Mr. Alden and Ms. Stock worked together in the CFR sponsored ‘Independent Task Force on U.S. Immigration Policy’, co-chaired by former Florida governor Jeb Bush and former White House chief of staff Thomas McLarty. The Task Force released its final report in July 2009, in which it concluded “the continued failure to devise and implement a sound and sustainable immigration policy threatens to weaken America’s economy, to jeopardize its diplomacy, and to imperil its national security”, and therefore called for a fundamental overhaul of its immigration laws. The three goals of the task force.

• As Congress debates U.S. Immigration policy, it seems that the Northern Border is being lost in the discussion, as questions of illegal immigration along the southern border dominate the debate. Both Alden and Stock feel this “southern border mentality” will be harmful to U.S. immigration policy in the long run, as it is not conducive to the more “smart immigration” policy the U.S. should be striving for. Treating the southern border and the northern border as one in the same, neglects a history of Canada-U.S. relations, economic ties and security cooperation at both the border and continental level. Such a history was acknowledged in the formation of the Smart Border Declaration between the two states, however, it is now falling to the wayside as politicians look to create fair and equitable treatment in both the north and south.