The paranoia of elements of the anti-immigration movement has now hit a new level.

Jerome Corsi, one of the co-authors of Unfit for Command (the anti-Kerry book by Swift Book Veterans for Truth) has entered the fray. (I commented on Corsi here, here and here ). I have noted some of his writing online recently, but have largely ignored them.

However, his current piece at Human Events requires comment, as it underscores a deep xenophobia that seems to permeate segments of those opposed to immigration/immigration reform: A North American Union to Replace the United States of America?

In the piece Corsi claims, rather boldly, the following:

President Bush is pursuing a globalist agenda to create a North American Union, effectively erasing our borders with both Mexico and Canada. This was the hidden agenda behind the Bush administration’s true open borders policy.

Secretly, the Bush administration is pursuing a policy to expand NAFTA to include Canada, setting the stage for North American Union designed to encompass the U.S., Canada, and Mexico. What the Bush administration truly wants is the free, unimpeded movement of people across open borders with Mexico and Canada.

First off, please note the bolded portion, as it demonstrates that Corsi has no idea what he is talking about. Canada is already a part of NAFTA. Moreover, what we now know of as NAFTA started as a US-Canada trade agreement. Quite frankly, at that point one probably can stop reading, as it is clear that the author simply doesn’t know what he is talking about.

Nonetheless, we continue, and wonder if Corsi really believes what he is writing when he declares:

President Bush intends to abrogate U.S. sovereignty to the North American Union, a new economic and political entity which the President is quietly forming, much as the European Union has formed.

Part of this, of course, is the typical response from US isolationists who see any international trade regime to be the US “surrendering its sovereignty.” However, as I like to point out about organization like the WTO, which is also seen by many as a group to which we have “surrendered sovereignty”: whose rules primarily shape the functioning of the WTO? The answer: ours. Further, could the US leave the WTO if it so wanted? Answer: yes. As such, the degree to which we have engaged in some alarming “surrender of sovereignty” is highly, highly questionable.

Even if we assume that the US is pursuing an EU-like structure for North America (which it isn’t), then does anyone in the class have any idea who would be the hegemonic power that would dominate such a North American Union? Yes, you in the back? Correct! That would be the United States. The power disparities among the US, Mexico and Canada mean that something like the EU is utterly impossible in North America.

Indeed, anyone who think that Canada and Mexico want to surrender real sovereignty to the US for such an organization doesn’t know much about inter-American relations.

Further, the notion that this could all be done in secret, and then unveiled by the President to the shock of the American people is utter nonsense.

Corsi’s evidence for his grand conspiracy theory is a CFR document (here in PDF) entitled Building a North American Community.

The dreaded evidence that Corsi himself cites to show the pending erasure of our borders is as follows:

At their meeting in Waco, Texas, at the end of March 2024, U.S. President George W. Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin committed their governments to a path of cooperation and joint action.

My, but that’s damning. A commitment to “a path of cooperation and joint action”! Hide the women! Lock up the children!

Ah, but it gets worse:

In March 2024, the leaders of Canada, Mexico, and the United States adopted a Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP), establishing ministerial-level working groups to address key security and economic issues facing North America and setting a short deadline for reporting progress back to their governments. President Bush described the significance of the SPP as putting forward a common commitment “to markets and democracy, freedom and trade, and mutual prosperity and security.” The policy framework articulated by the three leaders is a significant commitment that will benefit from broad discussion and advice. The Task Force is pleased to provide specific advice on how the partnership can be pursued and realized.

Egads! Ministerial-level working groups! Task Forces! Why, I can feel our sovereignty slipping away even as I type.

In all seriousness, if one knows anything about the way government interact with one another knows that these types of things are established all the time. In April of this year, the US sent representatives from foreign policy related Departments to a meeting of the Central American Integration System to discuss joint security issues. Is that a surrendering of sovereignty?

Now, it is true that Corsi sights issues about a common external tariff and rules about movement of persons that would not sit well with the seal-the-border crowd:

The three governments should commit themselves to the long-term goal of dramatically diminishing the need for the current intensity of the governments’ physical control of cross-border traffic, travel, and trade within North America. A long-term goal for a North American border action plan should be joint screening of travelers from third countries at their first point of entry into North America and the elimination of most controls over the temporary movement of these travelers within North America.

Such ideas have been around since the signing of NAFTA and is nothing radical, unless one is seriously afraid of Mexican hordes pouring over the border. It is hardly the erasure of borders and the ceding of sovereign power to some new North American government. Further, I would note that the statement is rather vague.

Regardless, Corsi draws a rather radical conclusion:

Why doesn’t President Bush just tell the truth? His secret agenda is to dissolve the United States of America into the North American Union.

Amazing. I would find it all laughable, expect that I am pretty sure that there are many people out there who will take it seriously.