The United States–Canada security community: a case study in mature border management

ABSTRACT

Canada and the US The United States and Canada have a long tradition of bilateral and binational security coordination, cooperation and collaboration. This is evident in a vast and growing number of transgovernmental networks that facilitate and enable policy alignment and parallelism in defence, border security, intelligence and counter-terrorism. The security community has mastered coordination and cooperation. The US–Canada relationship is based on reciprocity. Despite its common cultural bedrock though, the US–Canada security community's hallmark is policy parallelism. Forms of mature collaboration remain limited and are only found on occasion. Partnerships have proven more successful in functional areas than in principled ones.

KEYWORDS:

• North America
• United States
• Canada
• security community
• border
• security

Introduction

The United States and Canada are often said to have the closest bilateral security relationship, commonly thought of as the ‘longest undefended border in the world’ (Shore, 1998, p. 347). At the same time, the relationship is under persistent strain: The United States and Canada are sovereign countries whose democratically elected administrations seek to advance self-interest and political ideology. These differences are often exacerbated by their respective parliamentary and congressional systems. So, like all countries in the international system, the United States and Canada have two basic options: compete or cooperate. Neither country needs to cooperate with the other on managing the joint border.

Macky, Ian. 2014. Map of Canada https://ian.macky.net/pat/map/ca/ca_blk.gif

The US–Canada border has long been a critical case study and laboratory of experimentation in cross-border cooperation: Charles Doran’s book (1984) laid the foundations of international relations research on the diverse dynamics of cross-border relationships within international politics by conceptually specifying the ‘psychological-cultural’, ‘trade-commercial’, and ‘political-strategic’ dimensions of the US–Canada relationship. Over the decades, that cooperation has transformed the US–Canada relationship into a continental security community whose hallmark is the extent to which mutual cooperation has led to an intentional shift of the joint border away from the actual borderline. However, that shift had to reconcile an inherent tension between the imperatives of ‘economic globalisation’ and ‘territorial security’ at the US–Canada border (Alper & Loucky, 2007). Kent (2011) frames US–Canada border cooperation as a compromise between disparate national interests in which Canada is primarily concerned about trade while the United States is more concerned about terrorism and illegal migration. However, the outcome of this bilateral cross-border cooperation reflects a compromise of ideals, sovereignty, and pragmatism; so, instead of focusing on security at the joint border, the United States and Canada have taken a binational approach to building a comprehensive security system around common interests related to the border as manifest in policing, counterterrorism, intelligence, and defence to detect, disrupt, and deter threats.

This approach stands in stark contrast to low levels of collaboration along the US southern border, which comes at significant economic, social, and political costs. Indeed, the hard border paradox suggests that the harder the border, the greater the costs. By contrast, bilateral and binational cooperation across the US–Canada border exemplifies the open border paradox: the mutual benefit that accrues from open borders is a function of extensive cooperation. This article posits an open border strategy as a well-managed border with the capacity to detect, disrupt, and deter threats away from, rather than at, the actual borderline. Given the nature of trade in a globalised world and the importance of bilateral trade to continental prosperity, enforcing security at the actual borderline is increasingly ineffective and inefficient.

On the eve of the Second World War, the United States and Canada reached a strategic consensus: the defence of the continent was in their mutual interest and they would henceforth cooperate accordingly. In the decades that followed, North America became the world’s most prosperous, stable, and harmonious democratic society. As an incidental consequence of that momentous decision, the two countries ended up sharing what famously has become known as the longest undefended border in the world. That, however, is a misnomer. In effect, the border between the United States and Canada is an exemplar of the open border paradox: open borders actually depend on extensive cross-border cooperation for their effectiveness and legitimacy. Indeed, as the continent and the world became more integrated with the advent of globalisation, border management became more deliberate and intentional.

On the one hand, that cooperation is manifest in bilateral and binational coordination of border management strategies, which seek to foster mutual socio-economic prosperity while optimising cross-border security cooperation and enforcement (Stein, 1990; Hataley & Leuprecht, 2019). On the other hand, that process has effectively resulted in the border increasingly being moved away from the actual boundary line. Additionally, the border has been ‘relocating’ inside each country’s sovereign territory and well beyond: It is found in reciprocal agreements enforcing the border inside airports, cities, and according to mutually recognised, not always reciprocal, regulatory systems. Such processes have accelerated since the mid-1990s with the rise in transnational trade and threats: terrorism, smuggling and trafficking of humans, illicit narcotics, child pornography, counterfeit and dangerous commodities, contaminated food, cyber-threats, etc., which Canada and the US administer in close cooperation. Coordination has continued apace with the aim and effect of increasingly moving the border beyond the border. This outcome was facilitated by shared interests, institutions, identity, and ideas that have been shaping borders and border management not only for the continent, but across the world (Brunet-Jailly et al., 2006; BPRI, 2011).

The United States and Canada share the largest and longest-standing bilateral trade and investment relationship in the world: approximately 400,000 people and USD$2 billion in goods cross the joint border each day by land, sea, and air (Hale, 2012). That encompasses more than 120 land ports of entry, over 200,000 flights per year, and thousands of commercial and recreational vessels daily (White House, 2015). The United States and Canada share common infrastructure and interconnected supply chains. For instance, North American manufactured automobiles commonly transit the border multiple times during the course of production (Dawson & Frazer, 2011; Anderson, 2012). To maintain the flow of legitimate trade, including just-in-time delivery, as well as travel across the United States–Canada border, while also providing security, requires bilateral cooperation, coordination, and commitment on the part of the agencies responsible for border security and their respective governments. The following sections detail the history of this relationship and outline the extent to which such cooperation has been successful in spanning the boundary line and expanding across both countries.

Historic and geographic background

From the late eighteenth through the nineteenth century, the US–Canada border was marked by adversity and conflict, which then gave rise to an economic cross-border détente. Out of adversity grew institutional structures that fostered an ongoing cooperative and integrated border enforcement regime, dynamic enough to evolve and adjust to emerging threats and challenges, yet sensitive enough to enable legitimate trade and travel. By way of example, this regime processes a million people and 67,000 cargo containers at US ports of entry each day (CBP, 2016). At the same time, transaction costs at the border are often low for organised crime, which has shown itself to be quite resilient (Leuprecht et al., 2016). Common smuggling routes for contraband include a corridor between British Columbia and Washington state, and the Akwesasne region (Leuprecht, 2016). Illegal firearms that are used to commit criminal offences in Canada overwhelmingly originate in the United States (Leuprecht & Aulthouse, 2016). Conversely, transnational organised crime capitalises on markets of opportunity to move drugs, such as ecstasy and cannabis that have lower penalties in Canada, from Canada to the US, and the amount of illicit trade from Canada to the Eastern US seaboard suggests that risks associated with crossing the border are low (Hataley & Leuprecht, 2013).

The border between the United States and Canada predates the establishment of an independent Canada in a process that is now revisited (Hoy, 2020). Eight months after the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1763), King George III of Great Britain issued his Royal Proclamation (1763), which ultimately formed the Province of Québec¹, defined the initial boundary for the original Thirteen Colonies, demarcated the 49th Parallel as the northernmost boundary between the colonies of New England and Province of Québec (Johnson, 2013). The conflict between the United States and Great Britain concluded in 1814 with the Treaty of Ghent. In both countries the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries saw rapid migration and economic development as well as the export of natural resources, agricultural products, and manufactured goods. Concomitantly, for years the collection of customs and excise duties at ports of entry was the primary – and growing – source of revenue for both federal governments (Ellis, 1940; McIntosh, 1984; Heaman, 2017; Watson, 2017). Most federal, state/provincial, and municipal institutions date back to that same period—including the institutions responsible for border integrity, security, and management (Shore, 1998). Early border enforcement included the creation of the U.S. Border Patrol to control southbound migration along the northern US border, and the deployment of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to western Canada, at least in part, to control the cross-border trade in American whiskey. (Table 1).

Table 1. Historical development of border management institutions – United States and Canada.

United States	Canada
U.S. Customs Service, est. 1789	Canada Customs, est. 1867
U.S. Dept. of Immigration and Naturalization, est. 1891	Canada Immigration, est. 1906
U.S. Border Patrol, est. 1924	Royal Canadian Mounted Police, est. 1873

Beginning in the late nineteenth century, raw materials from Canada were exported en masse to the United States as part of American industrial and urban growth. Conversely, American manufactured exports sustained Canadian nation-building (Thompson & Randall, 2008). Immigration to the continent as well as migration between the United States and Canada also increased along with social, economic, and political ties, owing to the cross-border movement of workers and families during the continent’s westward expansion (Bennett, 1995).

In 1919, the introduction of prohibition in the United States posed one of the first serious disruptions to the nascent cross-border relationship. Despite bilateral efforts to curb the smuggling of liquor and enforcement efforts by Canada Customs and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police² liquor production, export, and smuggling persisted through the end of prohibition in 1933 (McIntosh, 1984). However, liquor smuggling during prohibition and some illegal immigration aside, neither side of the border posed an existential threat to the other. Henceforth travel between the United States and Canada was relaxed: for years citizens of either country rarely had to present identity documents or undergo inspection. That was possible because the continent was secure: existential threats emanated from outside the continent, not within. The joint defence of North America was formalised in the Ogdensburg Agreement of 1940 (Sens, 2018). It outlined a permanent plan for mutual defence, created the Canada-United States Permanent Joint Board on Defence composed of an equal number of senior military but led by civilians from each country. The Board was to study mutual defence and submit recommendations to the two governments. Both countries could thus harmonise their security activities without unacceptable liabilities (Beatty, 1991), while at the same time accepting some degree of risk from the other counterpart.

During the second half of the twentieth century the United States and Canada were largely insulated from existential threats, except for having to deter the Soviet nuclear threat. In response, the United States and Canada established a bi-national institution: the North American Air Defence Command (NORAD) built on the foundations of the Canada/United States Permanent Joint Board on Defence. Both institutions proved so useful that they exist to this day. The transnational nature of the nuclear threat fundamentally changed the way both countries had to think about borders, binational defence, and mutual cooperation. Concurrently, as early as the 1960s both countries posted ‘visa officers’ at their embassies and immigration officers in major urban centres, effectively to pre-screen persons before they entered the continent (Sundberg, 2012).

Contemporary border security along the Canada–US border has grown to include the coordination of multiple policy areas and institutional structures, driven by similar interests and ideas. No single Canadian or American agency can lay sole claim to ensuring security along the Canada–US border. As such, understanding border security, and ultimately the movement of border security away from the border, is premised on knowing how and why border security agencies work together to achieve their respective goals. The next section will examine how different agencies coordinate to share information, resources, and infrastructure, which ultimately results in a coordinated, collaborative and shared border security strategy both at and away from the border.

Border security

Prior to being formalised in the Smart Border Declaration of 2001 the security relationship between Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was set out by a series of bilateral agreements, notably a 1984 agreement on mutual assistance and cooperation. To date CBSA and CBP have more than 21 customs and immigration arrangements to share information, intelligence, documentation on travellers and commercial goods, and the prevention and investigation of customs offences.

For most of the twentieth century the United States–Canada border was managed and protected by United States Border Patrol, the RCMP, and the US and Canadian coast guards³ (Brunet-Jailly, 2004, 2006a, 2006b, 2012a, 2012b; Sundberg, 2012; Cozine, 2016). Since the 1970s, the United States and Canada have actively maintained and advanced their exchange of law enforcement intelligence and criminal records data, initially through the National Law Enforcement Telecommunication System (NLETS), engaged in joint border security and immigration removal operations, and even constructed shared border inspection stations (Sundberg, 2012). By 1989 coordination between American and Canadian law enforcement efforts was increasing, initially as in the form Project North Star to coordinate counter-drug activity along the border. Since the mid-1990s the American and Canadian border relationship has evolved: It has become more dynamic and collaborative at managing the border – away from the actual border. Border disruptions immediately following 9/11 motivated new approaches for dealing with the United States–Canada border. The United States – Canada Smart Borders Declaration and Thirty-Point Action Plan were announced in December 2001 with the singular aim of ‘enhancing the security of our shared border while facilitating the legitimate flow of people and goods’ (Homeland Security Digital Library, 2002). The Action Plan’s four pillars remain hallmarks of cross-border coordination: (1) the secure flow of people, (2) the secure flow of goods, (3) secure infrastructure, and (4) information sharing and coordination in the enforcement of these objectives.

Two objectives were the rapid transborder movement of known low risk travellers while optimising the allocation of scarce resources to unknown and possibly high-risk individuals. Bilateral trade agreements such as the Canada-United States Automotive Production Agreement (1965), the Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement Trade Agreement (1988), and later the North American Free Trade Agreement (1994) as well as the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (2020) were accompanied by programmes to expedite the movement of people and goods across the border (Sundberg, 2012). The 2004 Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative (WHTI) instituted a common document standard for travel within the North American region. Developed in response to the WHTI, the NEXUS pre-clearance programme has proven popular and effective in expediting border crossings for trusted travellers. Participants are issued a biometric photo-identification proximity card that allows the holder to cross the border through dedicated inspection lanes (CBP, 2005). The backbone of this bilateral programme is real-time and accurate information and intelligence sharing between American and Canadian border security agencies under the embedded Statement of Mutual Understanding (SMU) of the Thirty Point Action Plan. Prior to 9/11, information-sharing arrangements only allowed the exchange of information on a case-by-case basis in accordance with domestic laws. Since 9/11, proactive sharing of information has become a cornerstone for effective border and national security (CIC, 2003). Information covered under the SMU includes traveller crossing history, biographical data, immigration and criminal histories, and biometric data such as available fingerprints and iris scans. The original SMU between Citizenship and Immigration Canada and, in the United States, the Immigration and Naturalization Services in the Departments of State was later expanded to all Canadian and American agencies involved in border security and immigration management (CIC, 2003).

By 2004 the border had become one of six strategic areas of Canada’s national security policy. Securing an Open Society identified three core national security interests: protecting Canadians at home and abroad, ensuring Canada is not a base for threats to its allies, and contributing to international security. Canada created a new Public Safety department⁴ that brought together five federal law enforcement, security, and intelligence services, including the new Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA). The 2005 Canada Border Services Act codified the most fundamental change in Canadian border security strategy in almost a century. For nearly 90 years, customs, immigration, food inspection, and policing functions had been housed in separate agencies. Unarmed customs and immigration officers had long assumed responsibility for administering and managing the flow of people and goods through Canada’s land, air, and seaports-of-entry. But in December 2003, the enforcement functions of the Canada Revenue Agency, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, and the Canada Food Inspection Agency were merged into a single agency under the newly established Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness. The RCMP continued to be in charge of the border between ports of entry and of investigating immigration-related cases (Leuprecht et al., 2021).

CBSA has had to shift its administrative focus from parochial to global. Gone are the times when a frontline border officer simply had to know the Immigration Act or Customs Act, for example. That same officer is now responsible for calculating duties and taxes on imported goods or generating paperwork for a foreign visitor. Though once distinct, the duties of customs, immigration, and food inspection officers all became Border Services Officers (BSOs) in 2003. The culture of ‘border officers’ has shifted significantly: for nearly a century unarmed officers typically administered travellers or goods with the aim of facilitating trade and commerce; now armed BSOs ‘screen’ travellers and goods for contraband and risk before, at, and beyond the border (Côté-Boucher, 2018). At a port of entry (POE), armed and uniformed CBSA officers examine and process persons, goods, and agricultural products to ascertain admissibility in accordance with immigration law, ensure duties and customs are remitted, and identify, intercept, and deny dangerous persons, goods, and agricultural products. Preceding the POE, CBSA maintains the integrity of Canada’s immigration and refugee programme, collects intelligence on threats to Canada and its borders, and contributes to Canada’s counter-terrorism efforts. It reviews and screens visa applications and coordinates with foreign customs, immigration, and agricultural inspection services. Beyond the POE, officers at ‘inland’ offices throughout Canadian cities investigate inadmissible persons or goods inside the country, arresting, detaining, and removing unlawful non-citizens, and seizing contraband goods and agricultural products. CBSA officers also inspect international mail, courier packages, and other shipped goods entering Canada from abroad. CBSA also operates a domestic (inland) customs and immigration enforcement branch with 51 offices that actively investigate and collect intelligence in relation to violations of customs, immigration, and national security laws and maintains 36 international offices, including those in the United States.

Beyond granting citizenship, the non-enforcement divisions of Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC) were kept intact with the mission of facilitating the arrival of immigrants, providing protection to refugees, and offering programming aimed at assisting the settlement of newcomers to Canada. Unlike the United States, however, CIC became a standalone federal department that was renamed Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) in 2015.

Meanwhile, the United States Homeland Security Act (2002) created the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) with the United States Coast Guard and three new agencies: (1) Customs and Border Protection (CBP), which merged the INS and U.S. Customs Services (USCS) inspection branches, (2) Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and (3) the Citizenship and Immigration Service (CIS). ICE and CIS are exemplary insofar as they illustrate the shift of the border beyond the border.

The CBP has primary responsibility for border security at all ports of entry and along the border itself. Its border security and enforcement operations are carried out by three divisions: (1) the Office of Field Operation, (2) Border Patrol, and (3) Air and Marine Operations. The Office of Field Operations is primarily responsible for screening people and goods entering by air, sea, and land. Border Patrol is primarily responsible for detecting, interdicting, and preventing the unlawful entry of individuals entering the United States, along with interdicting smuggled narcotics and other contraband between official ports of entry. Air and Marine Operations provides support for the other two operational components by detecting, interdicting, and preventing the unlawful movement of people, narcotics, and other contraband toward or across American borders.

Beyond the border, ICE has two main operational components that carry out enforcement and investigation activities: (1) Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO), and (2) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI). ERO is primarily tasked with interior enforcement of immigration laws including identifying, apprehending, detaining, and removing aliens residing illegally within the United States or others deemed removable by an immigration judge. It also oversees America’s immigration detention system. HSI is responsible for investigating a wide range of domestic and international activities arising from the illegal movement of people and goods into, within, and out of the United States. HSI also contains the Office of Intelligence (commonly known as HSIntel) that develops intelligence on illegal trade, travel, and financial activity through analytic analysis of internal, open source, and partner information—regularly sharing their intelligence in near-real-time with field offices and law enforcement partners worldwide – including the Canada Border Services Agency (Steiner, 2014).

Under DHS, the former INS’s Examinations Branch became its own agency, CIS, and assumed responsibilities for overseeing lawful immigration while also maintaining the integrity of the immigration system. While CIS is not considered an enforcement agency, its Fraud Detection and National Security Directorate analyzes, reports, produces, and disseminates immigration-focused intelligence products focused on the identification of fraud trends, vulnerabilities of the immigration programme, and also enhances national security efforts. The branch is also the conduit for information sharing, coordination, and collaboration with ICE and various other law enforcement, intelligence, and security agencies (Randol, 2010).

The USCG remained relatively unchanged as a branch of the military but outside of the Department of Defense. It simultaneously acts as a military service, law enforcement agency, emergency first-responder, and federal regulatory body. USCG’s missions include defending America’s maritime borders by disrupting and deterring narcotics and undocumented migrants within the territorial waters of the United States as well as preventing their entry into American waters via international maritime routes.

Law enforcement agencies outside of the DHS with a role in border security include the Department of Justice (DOJ), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). Their joint hallmark is the extent to which they have been moving the border beyond the border. The FBI investigates a variety of border-related issues such as terrorism, human trafficking, and transnational organised crime. The DEA investigates interstate and international narcotics offences. The Department of State (DOS) issues passports to American citizens and visas to non-citizens. Its Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) – within the Bureau of Diplomatic Security, which is the law enforcement and security arm of the U.S. Department of State – investigates passport and visa fraud, often in cooperation with international partners, including Canada (Cozine, 2016; Reyez Marquez, 2017; Leuprecht, 2019).

In 2016, Operation Northern Watch (ONW), initiated by the Diplomatic Security Service (DSS) in cooperation with Canadian authorities, revoked approximately 2,400 US visas that had been issued across 85 different US diplomatic posts (Crawford, 2017a). The US Department of State reported that ‘the vast majority of the individuals referred through Operation Northern Watch are individuals intending to claim asylum in Canada or [who] have already claimed asylum. Included in this group were individuals with ties to designated terrorist organizations’ (United States Department of State, 2017). Canada’s minister for public safety had singled out US diplomatic posts in Nigeria for issuing travel documents to individuals who then transit the United States to Canada (Crawford, 2017b).

The 2011 Beyond the Border Action Plan further institutionalized shared interests and risks for border and regional security with the expansion and entrenchment of programmes already in existence: Preclearance models, such as FAST, NEXUS, PIP and C-TPAT were expanded along with a commitment to improve infrastructure and expand membership in the programmes. To reduce border wait times, facilitate the cross-border flow of commerce, and reduce the redundancy of inspections Canada and the United States committed to a more streamlined process for pre-approval and standardised inspection processes. Having started to share entry-exit data for land and sea ports of entry, in 2017, after lengthy negotiations to protect the privacy and use of Canadian data by the US, Canada and the United States started sharing entry-exit data along land border crossings, effectively now offering each country full domain awareness of who is entering and leaving the continent, and the status of travellers crossing by land into the other’s jurisdiction.

The Beyond the Border Accord of 2011 saw the United States and Canada align their customs and immigration management systems to allow for the rapid, monitored, and secure trans-border movement of people and goods (Cozine, 2016). Key areas of cooperation, coordination and collaboration included: (1) addressing threats early, (2) trade facilitation, (3) economic growth and jobs, (4) integrated cross-border law enforcement, (5) critical infrastructure, and (6) cyber security (White House, 2011a). The Accord articulates the shared, coordinated, threat-centric, and layered approach to the border and national security within, at, and beyond the US and Canada. It aims to identify threats as early as possible while ‘expediting lawful trade and travel’ (White House, 2011b). Since 2015, the Visa and Immigration Information Sharing Agreement of 2012 has enabled automated sharing of biographic and biometric information to assist officers in their decision to issue a visa. Under the Beyond the Border accord, Canada and the United States agreed to share entry-exit data on travellers entering by air, sea, and land. CBSA dispelled initial concerns over privacy, convincing Canadians of the merits of legitimate information sharing and the benefits of greater domain awareness that outweigh the risks of the legal aggregation of data.

To mitigate the threat posed by terrorist activities, CBSA launched the Interactive Advance Passenger Information (IAPI) initiative in 2016 to implement Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada’s (IRCC) electronic travel authorisation (eTA) requirements for:

visa exempt foreign nationals flying to Canada […] [B]y enabling CBSA to issue ‘board and no-board’ messages to commercial air carriers, the IAPI expands the existing Advance Passenger Information/Passenger Name Record Program by identifying and minimizing the risk of improperly documented persons from boarding flights to Canada. (Leuprecht et al., 2021)

The eTA effectively expands the scope of the border beyond the border to flag people who are inadmissible or travelling with improper documentation long before they reach the actual physical border. To make the process more manageable, US citizens, who represent the largest single group of travellers, are exempt.

Policing

The modern cornerstone for cross-border police cooperation is the Canada–United States Cross-Border Crime Forum (CBCF). Created in 1997, it was to tackle cross-border crime primarily in the eastern region of the two countries. The Trump administration abolished the CBCF; the Biden and Trudeau administrations revived it in February 2021. The CBCF brings together senior members of Public Safety Canada, Canadian Department of Justice, RCMP and the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. Participants from the United States include the Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorney’s Office, FBI, DEA, USCG, ATF and ICE. Shared initiatives created under the CBCF include joint targeting and assessments of potential threats, public advisories, and new and innovative law enforcement collaboration models. As a result, the CBCF has improved cooperation, coordination and collaboration through better information sharing and joint operations between the two countries, which is a priority for both Canada and the US in the global fight against organised crime and – after 9/11 – terrorism.

Prior to the creation of the CBCF agencies had formalised arrangements between them, such as memoranda of understanding (MoU) for specific purposes. For example, a MoU between the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) enables the sharing of certain evidence and criminal intelligence between agencies across borders to facilitate close collaboration on investigations and prosecution of drug-related crime.

In 1996, in an effort to combat cross-border crime in the western parts of Canada and the United States, Integrated Border Enforcement Teams (IBET) were developed. Following the events of 9/11 IBET was expanded to include the entire Canada–United States border. The information and intelligence sharing agreement that was created along with the IBET units is one of the most comprehensive cross-border law enforcement agreements globally. The agreement essentially allows partner agencies to share just about any and all information related to cross-border criminal activity.

IBET has since evolved into the Integrated Cross-Border Maritime Law Enforcement Operations (ICMLEO), colloquially known as Shiprider (Legrand & Leuprecht, 2021). Shiprider is a general term used by the United States Coast Guard (USCG) to describe operations on board USCG vessels that have a foreign law enforcement component. These types of Shiprider arrangements had been in place in the Caribbean for a number of years before the creation of the Canada–United States Shiprider programme. The Canada–US programme, however, is unique in a number of ways. Most importantly, Shiprider teams operate on both sides of the Canada–US border (in the maritime domain), and team members have law enforcement powers regardless of the side of the border on which they are operating. For example, an RCMP officer working on a Shiprider team is given Title 19 authorisation in the United States to function as a law enforcement officer under the direction of an American officer while on US territory. Similarly, US Shiprider team members are given police powers under the RCMP Act, while operating under the direction of a Canadian police officer in Canadian territory. Shiprider has broken new ground in the integration of Canadian and American law enforcement operations and exemplifies a high level cooperation and collaboration in cross-border security operations.

The Shiprider programme consists of jointly crewed vessels that undertake regular patrols on waterways between the two countries, during special operations for large events (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 2015). In Canadian waters, the Shiprider crew is subject to Canadian laws and all operations are under the direction and control of the RCMP; the corollary applies in American waters (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 2015). The creative innovation achieved by this programme was that RCMP officers are cross-designated as U.S. Customs officers and the USCG as RCMP supernumerary constables (Watson, 2009); consequently, Shiprider officers are authorised to enforce federal law on both sides of the border. Together, they conduct seamless enforcement on both sides of the border: the enforcement officers are able to cross the border in pursuit of suspects without running afoul of sovereign jurisdiction.

Representatives from the USCG and the RCMP are cross-designated and thus able to exercise enforcement powers on both sides of the border (Government of Canada, 2014). In 1996, British Columbia (BC) and Washington had piloted the first IBET which was a locally driven initiative by the RCMP, USCG, and border officers working in that area. Yet, there was no dedicated funding or political imperative to implement the teams until after 9/11 when Canada proposed a number of ‘smart’ border initiatives to increase security while preventing a hardening of the border. The Smart Border Accord focused on expanding IBETs, providing them with dedicated resources and staff, and increased information sharing (U.S.–Canada Smart Border/30 Point Action Plan Update, 2002). IBET’s priorities were national security, organised crime and other border crimes by sharing intelligence, cooperating on investigations and leveraging resources (Aitken, n.d.). Five main agencies cooperated: the RCMP, U.S. Coast Guard, Canada Border Services Agency, U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Office of Border Patrol, and U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (US-ICE; Watson, 2009). While IBETs marked the beginning of a relationship in cross-border enforcement, only Shiprider inaugurated integrated cross-border enforcement (Van Dusen & Miller, 2011).

The events of 9/11 and the development of the Smart Border Declaration (2001) set the stage for a new border security relationship between Canada and the United States in information and intelligence sharing between law enforcement agencies. The original 30-point agreement focused heavily on law enforcement and intelligence integration and formalised intelligence sharing agreements between the RCMP, FBI and other US agencies on the basis of national security.

The Smart Border Declaration set the tone for contemporary law enforcement cooperation, coordination, information and intelligence sharing between the two countries, with measurable metrics and an ongoing arrangement to continue on the trajectory of greater integration of policing across the border. The Beyond the Border Action Plan (2011) committed both countries to increase the amount of information that is shared, the cooperation and coordination of law enforcement with the formal development of the Canada–United States ICMLEOs, the development of cross-border radio interoperability, and intelligence sharing in support of law enforcement operations.

Informal networks have long been the basis of much of the historic and contemporary foundations for police-to-police cooperation and continue to be so. However, challenges of cross-border drug investigations on the eastern seaboard and the pursuit of suspects across the border in the West resulted in improved police cooperation by formalising arrangements. This was possible precisely because of the trust and shared identity that informal arrangements had already generated. It was possible to garner the attention of policy makers and politicians in Washington, DC because the proposals, although sui generis, were aligned with common ideas by policy and political elites about the nature of the threat and the need to raise their game on detection, deterrence, and prosecution.

Yet, there are clear limits to shared interests: both countries sought to expand the Shiprider arrangement to the land border. However, the proposal stalled because common interests were too weak to overcome concerns about sovereignty in prosecuting law enforcement officials from the partner country in case of an indictable offence committed in the other country while cross-deputized. Unlike previous initiatives, this proposal was driven top-down by policy and political elites who viewed the shared risks as unacceptable.

The institutionalisation of police cooperation was an operational matter that was driven bottom-up (Kim & Perlin, 2019). 9/11 provided an endogenous shock that stimulated bilateral innovation in border security. Border security in both countries precipitated ambitious bureaucratic reorganisation, and the concentration of resources under more centralised lines of command and control. However, such bureaucratic reorganisation did not go as far as being clearly aligned across the boundary line, which occasioned some policy inefficiencies and lack of strategic policy coordination on customs and immigration. Still, the clear policy parallelism that emerged resulted from a need for bureaucracies to be better postured in response to changing conceptions of border security (Brunet-Jailly, 2006a, 2006b). Without aligning their respective policy instruments and bureaucratic capacities – as they had, for instance, long done on continental defence – both countries nonetheless addressed common challenges, for instance through the partial success of programmes such as IBET (Brunet-Jailly, 2004, 2006a, 2006b; Haddal, 2010; Longo, 2016). Aspects of collaboration and cooperation on security policies are discussed below within the broader context of counterterrorism and intelligence collaboration.

Counterterrorism

The rise of transnational terrorism on a global scale during the 1990s and the eventual cognisance that North America was not immune provided the biggest impetus for deepening the security cooperation that the bilateral security relationship had ever seen, certainly since the end of the Cold War: increased intelligence sharing, greater police cooperation, and better security across the border. However, 9/11 also inaugurated the era of ‘networked security’. No longer were the two countries just collaborating, exchanging certain information, or intelligence to overcome hurdles, get more timely and precise information, and improve inter-agency cooperation. Federal, state, and provincial governments systematically began to embed officers in each other’s organisations, foremost among them intelligence fusion cells. The most prominent among these are US liaisons that are part of and collaborate with the Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSET) in major Canadian metropolitan areas. The benefits are multiple: immediate tracing of cross-border connections, timely access by Canadian authorities to the largest intelligence infrastructure in the world, and the opportunity to build trust, become familiar with one another’s institutional cultures and modus operandi, and exchange best practices. Canadians have similar representation in the US, but due to an asymmetry in resources, American authorities are more embedded in Canada than Canada is in US agencies.

A flurry of legislative changes and MoUs facilitated these arrangements. They are starting to mirror the highly networked defence infrastructure between the two countries. The terror attacks of 9/11 not only generated common interests in countering terrorism, but they also reinforced a common binational identity of safety and security (from effects exogenous to the two states, at least), and a common set of ideas about how best to contain the threat of terrorism. Contrast that level of institutionalisation with the glacial pace of better cooperation across the US’s southern border with Mexico where even an exogenous shock such as 9/11 was insufficient to stimulate a punctuated equilibrium: with serious and organised crime as Mexico’s top priority, there was and is no sense of common interest. With a different language, culture, and political tradition, there was no sense of common identity, and there was no common groundwork for ideas given the historical mistrust and adversarial relationship between the two countries.

Intelligence cooperation

The formal basis for intelligence sharing between Canada and the United States occurred when Canada joined the UKUSA Agreement in 1948, and secured formal recognition as a Commonwealth ‘Five Eyes’ partner in 1955. However, that agreement was limited largely to the defence domain, specifically to signals intelligence (SIGINT). Norway, Denmark, West Germany, Australia, and New Zealand were also invited to join. It brought together a community of countries with some sense of shared identity. However, there was an even stronger community of a shared set of ideas, in the form of the Atlantic Charter that had already set out a common vision among the US, UK, and Canada for a post-War order. Official recognition of Five Eyes Commonwealth partners thus suggests that intelligence sharing was not just transactional self-interest, but also a function of shared ideas (Leuprecht & McNorton, 2021).

By the 1980s globalisation and free trade had become drivers of rapid integration. By the 1990s, technological advances such as the internet and mobile communications were rapidly broadening the scope and strategic importance of SIGINT. The expansion of SIGINT in scope and relevance reinforced the benefits of collaboration. At the same time, confronted with a rapidly changing security environment in the wake of the end of the Cold War and the proliferation of serious and organised crime on a global scale, it become evident that the Canada–US security relationship stood to benefit from more systematic collaboration in other areas of intelligence. As the security environment evolved, decades of bi- and multilateral SIGINT cooperation had laid a foundation for enhanced cooperation that transcended mere common interest. Rather, it had become evident that a subset of Commonwealth countries shared not only a common identity but also a vision for global order that facilitated mutual trust and allowed them to institutionalise their SIGINT relationship. By dint of geostrategic destiny, sharing a common continent offers an incentive for Canada and the United States to harness the benefits of security collaboration, however asymmetric the distribution of resources and capabilities between them. As the globalisation of organised crime and threats proceeded apace in the 1990s, so did the benefits of bilateral security relations.

Conclusion

In late March 2020 the open paradox of the Canada–United States border faced its most significant challenge since the closing of the border following the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks on Washington and New York. On that day, the border between these two countries closed to all but essential travel. Observing the professionalism with which the border was co-managed in response to COVID-19, even while relations between the leaders in Washington and Ottawa were strained, is a testament to the integrated nature of the shared border between Canada and the United States. In contrast to the unilateral and improvised response concerning 9/11, bilateral border management had matured to the point where, in response to the pandemic, both governments coordinated on closing the border to all but ‘essential travel’, so as to minimise disruption to the integrated continental economy. Regular reassessments of pandemic control and the role of the border in containing the spread of COVID-19 quietly proceeded among bureaucrats on both sides, so as to avoid politicising the issue. As a border case study, the COVID-19 pandemic manifests the maturity, strength and resilience of the institutional structure of the Canada–US border as well as the shared interests and ideas that permeate that institution. Their seemingly effortless regulation of cross-border flow without politicising the issue despite ideological differences among the two countries’ political leaders at the time makes the Canada–United States border quite unique when analysed on a global scale.

Owing to the dominant global position of the United States as the only remaining superpower in the post-Cold War period, and the fact that US interest and influence span the globe, the role of power shapes the Canada–United States security relationship. In a security relationship that encompasses Canada and the United States, the smaller partner is influenced by US global interests, simply by association and geography. Thus, for Canada, there is a need for the United States to recognise the nation’s sovereignty as an issue of important national interest. The whole idea of the Canada–United States security relationship is seen as an attempt by the United States to make the homeland more secure by extending its boundaries beyond their geographic limits. The hegemonic position of the United States both regionally and globally is critical to understanding the regional security dynamic between Canada and the United States, but it is not the only factor. For instance, fear of closed borders after the 9/11 attacks prodded Canadian leaders to negotiate a new border arrangement to meet the changing needs of both countries.

After 9/11, Canada and the United States made a concerted decision that border security is a shared responsibility. Building on mature institutional security structures, integration, information, and intelligence sharing exemplify a commitment to the development of shared institutions, through common interests in secure border and common ideas about what that border should look like. These interests and ideas have not always been congruent: during the 1990s, for instance, Canada pitched what would become the WHTI to the US but got no traction because interests at the time did not align. Similarly, in the run-up to the 2001 Smart Border Declaration, Canada and the United States had different ideas about the role of the border in state security: Canada saw border security in the context of economic security, while the United States envisioned a ‘wall around the state’. However, through the process of articulating ideas, and supported by a pre-existing institutional structure that already embodied elements of shared interests, identity, and ideas, the Smart Border Declaration developed into a mutually acceptable and beneficial agreement, aligning border policies where possible, mutually accepting others where it is not. At the same time, the shared border strategy has moved the border beyond traditional territorial confines, making borders both global and digital at the same time.

Notwithstanding periodic challenges that cause cross-border concerns— such as the legalisation of recreational cannabis in Canada or the minimally regulated sale of semi-automatic small arms in the United States – the United States–Canada border remains a global example of functionally ascendant cross-border integration, cooperation and collaboration grounded in predictable institutional mechanisms, shared interests and shared risk. Terrorism, unlawful migration, human trafficking, narcotics smuggling, counterfeit food products and manufactured goods, along with rising numbers of refugees are indicative of the evolving transnational threat environment, along with pandemics, invasive species, and climate change. At the same time, advancements in technology and transportation have made both counties more interdependent. With the brief exception of the prohibition era the United States–Canada border has steadily evolved from a nascent relationship marked by colonial conflict and war with only limited cross border cooperation in relatively few policy areas. In the post-war era and under the umbrella of evolving security threats (from the Cold War through the War on Terror to the global pandemic) the binational approach to border management has become increasingly integrated across a broader spectrum of policy areas. However limited, this integration consisted of closer coordination and collaboration in many cross border security structures and agencies. This ascendant border is now evolving towards full maturation with the globalisation of threat vectors, emergent technology, and new opportunities for coordination and collaboration in many policy areas. While some policy areas remain beyond the purview of binational coordination, cooperation and collaboration, areas that have become more intergrated have functionally moved the border beyond the territorial demarcations of Canada and the United States to points territorially and virtually beyond the physical line.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada [grant number 895-2012-1022].

Notes

1 The original Province of Québec (1763) extended from the coast of Labrador, southwest along the Saint Lawrence River valley to the Great Lakes, and beyond to where the Ohio and Mississippi rivers meet. In 1783 areas below the Great Lakes were ceded to the United States under the Treaty of Paris, with the areas north of the Great Lakes being divided into Upper and Lower Canada.

2 The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) was established on 1 February 1920 through the amalgamation of the earlier Dominion Police (1868) and North-West Mounted Police (1873). Since being established, the RCMP have served as Canada’s federal police service and until 2013, has assumed primary responsibility for law enforcement along the Canadian side of the United States–Canada border and for all criminal prosecutions relating to legal violations at ports-of-entry.

3 The United States Border Patrol was established on 28 May 1924 as a branch of the United States Immigration and Naturalization Service. While the Border Patrol primarily is active along the southern border of the United States with Mexico, since the mid-1950s it has been permanently tasked with patrolling the United States–Canada border. At the time the United States Customs Service was established, so was the Revenue Cutter Service. Like Customs, the Revenue Cutter Service also had the mission of enforcing federal trade and tariff laws, along with preventing smuggling. The Revenue Cutter Service existed under many different names until 1915 when it was merged with the United States Life Saving Service to become what is today known as the United States Coast Guard (USCG).

4 Under Public Safety Canada are the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA), Correctional Service of Canada (CSC), Parole Board of Canada (PBC), and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).