How secure is the US-Canada border?

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Podcasts Take Two

Apr 24, 2013

Listen • 7:46

How secure is the US-Canada border?

Our policies are heavily directed at the Mexican border, but who is watching Canada, and how vigilantly?

A tour boat heads past Niagara Falls on the U.S.-Canada border June 15, 2012 as seen from from Niagara Falls, New York. Aerialist Nik Wallenda will attempt walk across a 1,800 foot 2 inch-wide wire Friday night as the first person to attempt to cross directly over the falls from the U.S. into Canada. Wallenda, 33 and a father of three, is a seventh generation member of the famed Flying Wallendas who trace their roots to 1780 Austria-Hungary, when ancestors traveled as a band of acrobats, aerialists, jugglers, animal trainers and trapeze artists. ABC is televising the event at 10:15pm Eastern Time Friday and insisted the daredevil wear a teathered harness to prevent live coverage of a potentially deadly fall 190 feet into the churning torrent below.

Our policies are heavily directed at the Mexican border, but who is watching Canada, and how vigilantly?

While the immigration debate continues in Washington, most attention has been paid to the Mexican border. But just this week, Canadian authorities foiled a terrorist plot to blow up a VIA Rail passenger train traveling across the border from Canada to the US.

That incident has turned the spotlight back to our neighbor to the north and raised questions about how the two borders compare when it comes to safety.