When pop superstar Taylor Swift finished out her Eras Tour in Vancouver, fans traveling through the U.S.-Canada border at Peace Arch in Blaine sat in their cars for hours, waiting to cross the border.
But could the Swifties’ experience be a glimpse into the future for Whatcom County residents? Maybe so, if Canada cracks down on border security to avoid a potential 25% tariff as threatened by incoming President Donald Trump.
The tariff proposed by Trump is one way the President-elect is trying to get America’s longtime ally and neighbor to the north to deter migrants and drugs from crossing the border. Mexico is also on the president’s potential tariff list.
Immigration experts agree changes at the border could negatively impact Whatcom County if Trump and his team implement new policy. Potential results include changes to visas critical to the county’s workforce and businesses as well as longer border-crossing wait times.
And while in the past the U.S. and Canada have worked cooperatively to secure the border, the future of that relationship remains at stake after Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced on Monday, Jan. 6 that he is stepping down.
Nearly 6,000 Customs and Border Patrol officers currently either patrol or manage the flow of people and goods at ports of entry and crossings along the 5,525 miles that connect the U.S. and Canada. Comparatively, more than 16,000 Border Patrol officers were assigned to the 1,900-mile U.S.-Mexico border in the 2019 fiscal year.
Border patrol encounters are defined as border patrol agents interacting with someone either crossing illegally or who is not allowed to enter the country. A majority of encounters along the northern border over the last three years have happened in Vermont, according to CBP data. Blaine accounts for a fraction of the encounters.
Trade agreement renegotiation threats could impact visas
During his campaign, Trump vowed to renegotiate the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, a trade deal signed in 2018 during the first Trump administration that replaced the quarter-century old North American Free Trade Agreement, commonly known as NAFTA. USMCA was set to be renegotiated in 2026 prior to Trump’s recent tariff threats.
That pledge has immigration experts like Greg Boos, an immigration attorney at Cascadia Cross-Border Law in Fairhaven, wary about the future of certain visas included in the agreement that allow Canadian nationals to work in Whatcom County.
Whatcom County businesses rely on a few visa categories. First is the E visa, which allows Canadians to engage in trade while in the U.S. as well as manage businesses that they either own 50% of or have made a significant investment in, typically more than $80,000.
The second visa category, the TN NAFTA Professionals, allows Canadians working in 60 different professions to be employed in the U.S. so long as they have part-time or full-time jobs with an American employer.
Boos said “a lot of the local doctors bring in nurses to work” using the NAFTA Professionals visa. “I know a couple of dentists that are using that.”
A number of berry farms in the county are also owned by Canadians who utilize the E visa program to be able to manage their business, he said.
Whatcom County’s health care workforce could be further impacted if H-1B visas, which allow non-citizens to be hired for skilled jobs, are targeted by the Trump administration.
While Trump told the New York Post that he’s a believer in the visa program and has had employees on his properties use H-1B visas, his deputy White House Chief of Policy, Stephen Miller, has pushed to restrict the program previously.
Boos pointed to the number of Indian nationals who live in Canada but work in Whatcom County on H-1B visas.
“If they do away with H-1B, or if they make them harder, it’s really going to hurt those people,” he said. “What’s going to happen to our medical personnel if Trump does away with H-1B?”
Changes in border security could lead to longer wait times
Trump has challenged Canada to be more aggressive with its approach to monitoring the border as a way to curb illicit drugs such as fentanyl from coming into the country. Prime Minister Trudeau met with Trump in December to discuss the reality faced at the northern border compared to the southern border.
“Less than 1 percent of migrants coming into the United States irregularly come from Canada and 0.2 percent of the fentanyl coming into the United States comes from Canada,” Trudeau told members of the Canadian Parliament in December.
Canadian officials have also put forward $1.3 billion to deploy helicopters, drones, mobile surveillance towers and officers with new canine teams, according to Public Safety Canada. The Canada Border Services Agency and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are two of the agencies responsible for border security.
Edward Alden, a visiting professor at Western Washington University focused on immigration and economic policy, imagines that any changes done in part by the Canadian government to strengthen border security could lead to longer wait times for travelers trying to enter at either the Peace Arch or Sumas border crossings.
That could include more frequent outbound searches of vehicles leaving Canada as well as more questions by border agents, especially if Trump’s administration implements a severe deportation policy.
The U.S. and Canada have worked well in the past on border security. Alden said post-9/11, the two countries established joint policing along the border, such as in the Great Lakes region, as well as intelligence sharing.
But if the Trump administration continues its hawkish approach to secure the borders, it could further break down relations with Canada. A month after being elected, Trump joked that Canada could become the 51st state and Trudeau its governor. In reaction to Trudeau’s resignation Monday, Trump posted on Truth Social that if Canada became part of the U.S. there would be no tariffs or taxes.
In response, Trudeau posted on X, formerly Twitter.
“There isn’t a snowball’s chance in hell that Canada would become part of the United States,” he said.
If relations between the U.S. and Canada continue to decline even after Trudeau’s successor is picked, that could not only have impacts nationally but locally for Whatcom County residents trying to cross and eventually the stream of travelers making their way between Seattle and Vancouver for the FIFA World Cup in 2026.
“If I had to anticipate, I think that the border is going to get harder to cross because there’s going to be a lot of pressure on the Canadians to make it look like they’re being tougher, even if it’s just optics,” Alden said.
Annie Todd is CDN’s criminal justice/enterprise reporter; reach her at annietodd@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 130.
