A “21 Century Border”? Cooperative Border Controls in the US and EU after 9/11

Since September 11, 2001 there has been redoubled interest in border security. This article examines trends in bordering in the US after 9/11, following two landmark agreements, the Beyond the Border Agreement with Canada (2011) and the 21st century Border Management Accord with Mexico (2010). This research reveals how US borders are getting thicker and are increasingly bi-national. First, borders are getting thicker infrastructurally, both in terms of their expansion inland and via increased surveillance. In this way, borderlines are expanding into zones. Second, there is a concomitant move towards the co-location and cross-designation of border forces across the border, thus making borders jointly-administered. These developments mirror a similar shift in thinking at the external frontier of the EU. In this way, contemporary bordering practice at the US perimeter is participant to a larger global trend of neighboring states behaving as partners in a joint effort at eliminating threats common to globalized mobility—immigrants, smugglers, terrorists—rather than adversaries linked by a thin line of truce. The article concludes by considering how the 21st century Border is not merely a space where states decide to “re-border,” but rather co-border.