Tancredo: Halt ‘Security And Prosperity Partnership’

Washington — Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., has asked Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez in a letter to suspend plans that would further a proposal known as the “Security and Prosperity Partnership,” until Congress has a chance to examine its goals.

“I know the administration has given assurances that the SPP is not a veiled effort to create a ‘North American Union,’ nor an effort designed to dilute American sovereignty by entering into a European Union-like arrangement with Canada and Mexico,” said Tancredo, chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus. “Unfortunately, however, [the SPP’s] ‘recommendations’ seem to be at odds with those assurances.”

Tancredo, the author of “In Mortal Danger,” which exposes what he sees as the crisis of illegal immigration in the U.S., concluded, “As such, I would ask that you consider suspending Commerce Department participation in this tri-lateral effort.”

Tancredo is one of four members of Congress who has signed on to a resolution designed to express “the sense of Congress that the United States should not engage in the construction of a North American Free Trade Agreement Superhighway System or enter into a North American Union with Mexico and Canada.”

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In the section on pandemic control, the Council recommends that “ . . . all borders and major roads remain open . . . to allow the unimpeded flow of domestic and international commerce.”

Tancredo said the most troubling recommendations appear in the section entitled “Improving Cross-Border Mobility (Goods/Services/People).” In that section, the NACC recommends “the governments evaluate moving customs processes further inland . . . to take the pressure off the border,” and to examine “harmonizing commercial processes for clearance of commercial shipments.”

The NACC goes even further, Tancredo said, by recommending “The Secretary of DHS [Department of Homeland Security] . . . set up a limited short term pass program or otherwise facilitate people who come to the border without documents,” and that “ . . . a reasonable grace period should be established at border crossings during which time people without documents are educated about their options and allowed to pass.”