Canadian Border Law Enforcement

Cross-Border Law Enforcement Canada and the US have a common interest in the security of the international boundaries whether it is on land, at sea, or in the air. Often times those boundaries become an impediment to law enforcement efforts on both sides of the border with criminals fleeing to the other side to escape justice. Canada and the US have experience in law enforcement cooperation, but it has primarily been for special events or one-time operations. With the rise in transnational organized crime and their links to terrorism, governments and law enforcement must adapt to the current realities. Under the BTB Action Plan, this binational law enforcement collaboration is established in the form of the pre-existent Integrated Border Enforcement

These designated officers maintain their status on both sides of the border but fall under the direction and control of the host country. The teams include personnel from multiple agencies such as US Customs and Border Protection, US Coast Guard, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and Canada Border Services Agency as well as provincial, state, and local law enforcement departments. With the secrecy surrounding police investigations, especially those dealing with transnational organized crime and national security, it is hard to determine just how successful these operations have been. There are no statistics available for the IBETs and those that are available for the BESTs are skewed because they also include figures for the US/Mexico border. Yet, if the land based teams were not delivering the necessary results, they would not have gone forth with the water based Shiprider. The 2013-14 Report on the Beyond the Border Action Plan Horizontal Initiative recounted that approximately 105 vessels were boarded, 50 in Canada and 55 in the US as well as responding to search and rescue calls on both sides of the border (Public Safety Canada n.d., Initiative 25). Moving forward under the BTB initiatives and within law enforcement are some pilot projects christened “Next Generation”. These projects were to have been underway

The initiatives highlighted throughout this paper do not even come close to discussing all of the joint programs between Canada and the US in terms of cross-border security. What the BTB Action Plan has accomplished is to closer align policies and practices through combined regulations and legislation. A study conducted by Leuprecht, Hataley, & Skillicorn suggests that greater bi-national cooperation will not necessarily make either country any safer, but it will make the rest of the world safer because North America will be harder to exploit as a market of opportunity in the global terror supply chain (Leuprecht, Hataley, & Skillicorn 2013, 170). This is precisely the meaning of “beyond the border” - extending the security perimeter as far as possible. Through the sharing of information and intelligence, integrated law enforcement, and shared responsibility for mutual resources, Canada and the US can continue with the long standing mutually beneficial trade and security relationship well into the