There’s a battle on the Peace Bridge between the U.S. and Canada. There’s a battle along the U.S. and Mexico border, too.
Same battleground, of course, but much different in many ways.
Up north, and on both sides of the border, citizens, business executives, elected officials, elk, moose – just about everything that walks or talks – are shaking in their snowshoes about a next U.S. Homeland Security step. Sooner or later (or never if U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer gets his way), people crossing the border one way or the other must have a valid passport.
Most folks in the United States (80 percent) as well as most folks in the Upper U.S. (92 percent) don’t have a passport. Critics have a kind of a point when suggesting economic harm and disruption with little anti-terror payback.
The border between the U.S. and Mexico is another story; but, when all is said and done, there is little terror concern at play here either: It’s illegal immigration and crime. The passport thing is a throw-away compared to the fences, sensors, motion detectors, patrols, walls, security video, vigilantes, rattlesnakes, heat and locked trucks that reduce illegal traffic one way or another.
There is no one answer, although ultimately it may come from Washington.