The Immigration Implications of the Security and Prosperity Partnership
By James R. Edwards, Jr.
Published in The Social Contract
Volume 18, Number 1 (Fall 2007)
Issue theme: "The future of an unsustainable planet"
http://www.thesocialcontract.com/artman ... ards.shtml

Summary:

Te NAFTA Superhighway. A North American Union. Foreign-run U.S. toll roads. Harmonization with Canada and Mexico. Continental currency called the Amero. If you’ve heard of any of these things, you’re in the ballpark of my topic: the Security and Prosperity Partnership.
The Bush administration’s initiative called the Security and Prosperity Partnership has serious implications for immigration. That’s because of its quiet surrender of American sovereignty.

Self-government is no longer a job Americans will do for themselves, the administration apparently thinks.

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Background

The SPP was launched in March 2005 in Waco. President Bush met there with Mexican President Fox and Canadian Prime Minister Martin.

These three leaders committed the three North American nations to cooperate, even integrate their policies on security/antiterrorism and economic fronts. These included transportation, energy, customs, and immigration.

SPP followed the course set by NAFTA—trilateral integration and harmonization. It also mirrors the recommendations of a task force of the Council on Foreign Relations.

SPP’s initial launch has led to the formation of working groups within the administration. The lead department is the Department of Commerce, with Homeland Security a close second. SPP also has a public-private collaborative called the North American Competitiveness Council. NACC gives a leading role to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

SPP has a very questionable and vague legal basis. Yet this lack of clear legal authority didn’t stop the administration from quickly entering various memoranda of understanding with Canada and Mexico.

SPP has not been conducted in secret, but its activities and participants have been secretive. There’s an official Web site, spp.gov, and lots of material available on it. But for the more substantive details, the public interest group Judicial Watch has had to use the Freedom of Information Act to force the government to disclose SPP’s more informative records.

SPP’s Immigration Implications

A continental guestworker program

NAFTA established a new class of temporary visas. SPP is building upon that and using the NAFTA visas as the first step toward a continental guestworker program.

SPP’s goal is “to formalize a transnational labor force that could work in any North American country on a temporary basis.â€