Analysis: Border issue to dominate summit

WASHINGTON, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- Business leaders from the United States and Canada hope the North American summit in Montebello, Quebec, this week will put efforts to integrate the two nation’s border control systems back on track.

“The issue” of talks about a pilot project for a single frontier checkpoint where both U.S. and Canadian entry and exit formalities can be completed “will be part of the conversation,” Steven Nesmith, a former U.S. Commerce Department official now working as a lobbyist on border issues, told United Press International. He said the information came from U.S. officials involved in preparations for the summit.

A Canadian official, Susan Cartwright, confirmed to reporters at a pre-summit briefing last week that the pilot -- called the land pre-clearance project -- was one of several border issues that “would likely be discussed” at the bilateral meeting between Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and U.S. President George W. Bush Monday.

The breakdown last April of talks about the pilot, mooted for the Peace Bridge -- which joins Fort Erie in Canada and Buffalo in New York state and is one of the busiest border crossings in the world -- has become something of a lightning rod for critics of the Department of Homeland Security, which pulled the United States out of negotiations on the issue after almost three years of talks.

Homeland Security “shouldn’t be in charge of one the most important trading relationships the United States has,” Scotty Greenwood, a trade lobbyist and executive director of the Canadian American Business Council, told UPI.

“The pre-clearance pilot is essential. It is the key to getting the smart border to work,” she said, referring to the collection of initiatives -- from RFID-enabled cards for frequent crossers to specially expedited customs lanes for trusted shippers -- that officials from both countries recognize as the only way to improve security at the frontier without undue disruption to commerce.

The Peace Bridge pilot would have effectively integrated the U.S. and Canadian checkpoints -- allowing an expansion of the crossing into vacant land on the Canadian side, reducing congestion and ameliorating any delays resulting from U.S.-imposed tougher border checks in the policy pipeline.

Homeland Security officials nixed the talks on the issue of the rights of U.S. officials to fingerprint people who approached the checkpoint but then changed their mind about entering the United States.

“The Canadians were very creative” about finding ways to enable U.S. officials to exercise the authorities they have in the United States when they operate in Canada, said Greenwood. She said agreement had been reached on more than a dozen difficult issues during the talks.

The Canadians “made it clear they wanted to find a way to do this (fingerprinting non-crossers) without violating their charter, within their legal setup. … (The Department of Homeland Security) just walked away.”

She said for many business leaders and lawmakers on both sides of the border the breakdown was symptomatic of a "my way or the highway" attitude the department had taken in relation to U.S. plans to tighten security on the northern border, in line with the Sept. 11 Commission report.

“Everyone wants security,” she said. “Everyone knows we need this,” referring to tough new border regulations known as the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative. “It’s how you implement it on a border where the infrastructure of the major crossings is already overloaded.”

Currently, WHTI will kick in at land borders in January, and anyone seeking entry to the United States will have to present a secure document establishing citizenship and identity.

The problem is that, at the moment, the only documents that actually exist that fulfill the law's requirements are passports. Critics are alarmed by the tight deadlines the Department of Homeland Security has imposed and by the dearth of alternative documents.

Officials have countered by touting a new credit-card sized U.S. passport document, known as the PASS Card, and a pilot project -- a joint venture by the department and Washington state that will enable new driver's licenses to confirm citizenship.

But the pilot does not come on-stream until January, and one U.S. official told UPI earlier this year that the PASS Card would not be available until next spring.

Given the infrastructure limitations -- most major crossings on the U.S.-Canadian border are in urban areas with no room for expansion -- pre-clearance, effectively integrating U.S. and Canadian checkpoints, is seen by many observers as the only way the border can cope with a new, tougher document regime.

“Their attitude is, they’re going to implement this whether it works or not,” Greenwood said of Homeland Security officials. She said they were risking bringing border commerce to a “grinding halt.”

Christopher Sands, an analyst at the Hudson Institute, said that the “very aggressive” U.S. attitude to security was also evident in the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership -- the trilateral process of keeping “our borders closed to terrorism yet open to trade,” according to its Web site.

“The security part is a little different (from the prosperity agenda), it’s very U.S.-driven,” he said. “It’s basically just a matter of the U.S. setting the standards and then getting the Canadians and the Mexicans to sign up.”

“That’s why they feel a little pushed,” he added, of Canada and Mexico.

But Greenwood said if Harper raised the pre-clearance issue with Bush, there was good reason to believe the president would force Homeland Security back to the negotiating table.

“The president wants to give Prime Minister Harper something, a political gift,” she said. “This would be easy.”

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(e-mail: swaterman@upi.com)