| "DOBBS: Border security is arguably the critical issue in this country's fight against
radical Islamist terrorism. But our borders remain porous. So porous that three million
illegal aliens entered this country last year, nearly all of them from Mexico.
Now, incredibly, a panel sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations wants the United States
to focus not on the defense of our own borders, but rather create what effectively would be a
common border that includes Mexico and Canada.
Christine Romans has the report.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
CHRISTINE ROMANS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): On Capitol Hill, testimony calling for
Americans to start thinking like citizens of North America and treat the U.S., Mexico and
Canada like one big country.
ROBERT PASTOR, IND. TASK FORCE ON NORTH AMERICA: The best way to secure the United States
today is not at our two borders with Mexico and Canada, but at the borders of North America
as a whole.
ROMANS: That's the view in a report called "Building a North American Community." It
envisions a common border around the U.S., Mexico and Canada in just five years, a border
pass for residents of the three countries, and a freer flow of goods and people.
Task force member Robert Pastor.
PASTOR: What we hope to accomplish by 2010 is a common external tariff which will mean that
goods can move easily across the border. We want a common security perimeter around all of
North America, so as to ease the travel of people within North America.
ROMANS: Buried in 49 pages of recommendations from the task force, the brief mention, "We must
maintain respect for each other's sovereignty." But security experts say folding Mexico and
Canada into the U.S. is a grave breach of that sovereignty.
FRANK GAFFNEY, CENTER FOR SECURITY POLICY: That's what would happen if anybody serious were to
embrace this strategy for homogenizing the United States and its sovereignty with the very
different systems existing today in Canada and Mexico.
ROMANS: Especially considering Mexico's problems with drug trafficking, human smuggling and
poverty. Critics say the country is just too far behind the U.S. and Canada to be included
in a so-called common community. But the task force wants military and law enforcement
cooperation between all three countries.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Indeed, an exchange of personnel that bring Canadians and Mexicans into
the Department of Homeland Security.
ROMANS: And it wants temporary migrant worker programs expanded with full mobility of labor
between the three countries in the next five years.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
ROMANS: The idea here is to make North America more like the European Union. Yet, just this
week, voters in two major countries in the European Union voted against upgrading -- updating
the European constitution. So clearly, this is not the best week to be trying to sell that idea.
DOBBS: Americans must think that our political and academic elites have gone utterly mad at
a time when three-and-a-half years, approaching four years after September 11, we still don't
have border security. And this group of elites is talking about not defending our borders,
finally, but rather creating new ones. It's astonishing.
ROMANS: The theory here is that we are stronger together, three countries in one, rather than alone.
DOBBS: Well, it's a -- it's a mind-boggling concept. Christine Romans, thank you, as always.
There is no greater example than our next story as to why the United States must maintain its
border security with Mexico, and importantly, secure that border absolutely. The police chief
of the violent Mexican border town, Nuevo Laredo, was today executed. It was his first day on
the job.
Alejandro Dominguez, seen here at his swearing-in ceremony, was ambushed by a number of gunmen
several hours just after that ceremony as he left his office. The assassins fired more than
three dozen rounds that struck Dominguez.
He was the only person who volunteered to become Nuevo Laredo's police chief. The position has
been vacant for weeks after the previous chief of police resigned. The town is at the center
of what is a violent war between Mexican drug lords. The State Department has issued two travel
warnings for Americans about that area just this year. And amazingly, the Mexican government
calls those State Department warnings unnecessary."
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