The Closing of the American Border:
Border Security, the Economy and Foreign Policy After 9/11
The Closing of the American Border: Border Security, the Economy and Foreign Policy After 9/11, was the topic addressed by
Edward Alden, Bernard L. Schwartz Senior Fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations. He came over our university in Laredo (Texas) to meet with us and I found it useful to write a report on this
conference held by the Western Hemispheric Trade Center.
Every year, millions of people cross the American borders legally or illegally. Some of them come to live in the
United-States, and some others come for a short term stay as it is the case with visitors crossing the Canadian-American borders: Given the fact that the price of some products is higher in the
U.S. than in Canada, Canadian residents found it easier and costly effective to drive few miles to the U.S. to get the same products with cheaper price. This created a big flow on both sides of
the border, and the American administration, in coordination with the Canadian Government had to come up with new solutions to make the move of trade and people more fluid. Thomas Joseph Ridge, former Governor of Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2000, was among the
first American officials to bring the problem to the table by stating that the long hours of traffic jams in the U.S.-Canadian borders will definitely harm the economy of the country. One part of
the solution was NAFTA, the North American Free Trade Agreement. This agreement was an expansion of the earlier Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1988 and removed restrictions
from many categories of goods. The negative part is that this agreement made it easier for drug dealers and illegal immigrants to move freely. And more dangerously, made the infiltration of
borders by terrorists easier.
The first thing Americans look at after the 9/11 events was the borders. How to make crossing the borders safer without
harming the substantial flow of trade and people? One of the solutions proposed was to launch a program to enforce migration laws. Knowing that the country accounts 600,000 universities
approximately, and that some of the 19 terrorists involved in the terrorist attacks were students resident in the U.S. (four of them were illegal), this program will at least have an eye on
people who reach the country, and who might represent a threat to American citizens.
Another solution was to build a huge database of the whole American population by launching a program of mass registration
to finger-print everybody. But this program seemed to be highly expensive, and the American administration finally renounced to the idea, preferring the first one related to migration
enforcement. The Immigration and Naturalization Service played a very important role in securing the borders of the U.S. and deporting over 15,000 illegal immigrants that were found in the U.S.
They concentrated their efforts on visitors coming from Muslim countries. They also made it obligatory for anyone coming from those countries to report to the U.S. authorities 30 days after their
arrival to the territory. These restrictive measures were not the first to be implemented in the country. Long time before the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the American Custom Services asked the
airline companies from all over the world to deliver all the information they have concerning their passengers. The procedure was then extended to all the domestic flights. The main matter of
concern was to make available to the custom officers as much information as possible about all the people arriving to the American territory, or flying from one location in the U.S. to another.
Thanks to this procedure, the U.S. authorities were able to identify all the 19 terrorists few hours after the attacks.
These strategies were all concerned with the border and security issues, but none of them took into consideration the
repercussions of such procedures on the American economy. The Secretary of Homeland Security showed clearly through the steps he took that what matters now for the United-States is security and
enforcement of the law, period. The operational control over the American borders was put in the top of his agenda with the idea that: The U.S. should make it so difficult to potential terrorists
to get into the country that they will not even try. The problem was how to distinguish between a potential terrorist and a normal visitor. The Homeland Security decided that the only solution
will be to make it difficult to access the territory for all the visitors, even if it causes disarrangement for everybody. Once again, not taking into consideration the other variables
such as the economy of the country will be harmful to the American citizens. But from the Homeland Security perspective, they consider that their first mission is to insure the safety of the
Americans, and they will achieve their mission.
At the end of the conference, students and professors asked some interesting questions to address the issue of security.
The conference being held in Laredo, and taking into consideration the important flows of trade and people across the Mexican-American boarders, some of the questions were about how the measures
taken in Washington will affect these flows. One of the questions raised the problem of the construction of the big wall that is intended to separate Mexico from the U.S. Edward Allen answered
that it will be a mistake to construct that wall, and that doing so will create more problems than find solutions.
Finally, the lecturer informed us that his coming book will be named after the title of this conference, that is, “The
Closing of the American Border: Border Security, the Economy and Foreign Policy After 9/11”.
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