Management of Border Security in NAFTA: Imagery, Nationalism, and the War on Drugs

• NCJ Number: 212222
• Journal: International Criminal Justice Review Volume: 15 Issue: 1 Dated: May 2005 Pages: 5-37
• Author(s): Martha L. Cottam; Otwin Marenin
• Date Published: May 2005
• Length: 33 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Through a focus on the war on drugs, this paper examines the complexities and different histories and current patterns of border management at the North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA borders of the United States and Canada and the United States and Mexico.

Abstract

The North American Free Trade Agreement or NAFTA requires the relatively unrestricted movement of people, goods, and services across borders between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. However, the success of these open borders also brings the opportunity for transnational criminal activities, specifically drug trafficking. Managing border security everywhere presents unique and complicated challenges to law enforcement agencies, such as fragmented authority domains among local, State and province, and national agencies in the three countries. Understanding the histories and patterns of interaction among the NAFTA partners requires an understanding of how they perceive themselves and each other. This paper explores the mutual images that policymakers in Canada, the United States, and Mexico hold of one another arguing that American policymakers see Canada through the ally image and Mexico through the colonial image. It discusses the patterns of policy and law enforcement interactions and mainly focuses on trans-border relations among Federal agencies at the borders. The main point argued is that needs and policy are not the only forces that drive cross-border law enforcement cooperation and conflicts. The capacity to work together results from multiple factors, including mutual imagery and nationalism. The likelihood that NAFTA will evolve into a seamless economic unit with a common set of policies on enforcing border control and transit is quite low, for that will only happen when images, stereotypes, and the force of nationalistic sentiments decrease in salience and intensity among all partners. References