Task Force Recommends Joint US-Mexico Approach to Border Security Joe Hitchon - Inter Press Service
go to original March 2, 2013

The lights of El Paso, Texas, seen from Ciudad Juárez. (Daniela Pastrana/IPS)

WASHINGTON - A group of business executives, civil society leaders, policy experts and former government officials from Mexico and the United States are recommending that the two countries expand cooperative law-enforcement efforts along the border.

They also assert that both countries need to develop a joint plan to address the negative effects that the current immigration system is having on individuals, families and communities.

Established in 2009, the Pacific Council on International Policy and the Mexican Council on Foreign Affairs (COMEXI), a Mexico-based non-profit association, convened for the fourth time in Washington in order to evaluate bilateral progress in managing the U.S.-Mexico border.

“The concerns of the report address issues related to both border security and immigration reform,” Rob Bonner, the task force co-chair and a former commissioner of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, said Wednesday.

“Migration remains one of the most important features of the U.S.-Mexico relationship, but beyond political rhetoric it has played a smaller part of the policy agenda between our two countries. Now, both domestically and bilaterally, implementing comprehensive immigration reform is within our grasp.”

When it was created, the principle objective of the task force was to introduce a set of policy recommendations for both governments on how to strengthen border security and cooperation, focusing on public safety, migration, facilitation of legal transit and commerce, economic development and border institutions.

The COMEXI report, initially published in 2009, was widely welcomed by government officials in both countries.

Read the whole story at IPS-Inter Press Service

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