The three countries of North America have been connected economically for decades, and even tighter since the advent of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). In addition to the integration of capital and product markets that were its hallmarks, NAFTA also created a relatively new framework (at least for this hemisphere) for the movement of people as part of the integration of trade among the United States, Mexico and Canada. Chapter 16 provided a framework for allowing the temporary entry of “business persons,” including certain professionals in delineated occupations. 

The three countries had enjoyed various levels of cooperation in migration issues prior to NAFTA, and this chapter was presaged in the pre-existing Canada-US Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) with a similar chapter. However, the NAFTA chapter represented a much more formalized agreement between the three countries to accommodate the entry of certain people into their territory to facilitate and expand the trade that was the main purpose of the FTA with the TN visa. In Fiscal Year (FY) 2023, the U.S. issued a total of 32,851 TN visas to Mexicans, while only granting 1,934 H1B visas (Speciality Occupations). However, during the same period the U.S. issued 284,272 H2A and 84,900 H2B visas for temporary agricultural and non-agricultural workers respectively. While Canadian citizens do not require a visa for the U.S., 632,301 Canadian citizens entered the U.S. in FY2022 under the Temporary Worker and Families category of admission.

When the three countries embarked on the renegotiation of NAFTA in 2017, they  quickly agreed not to touch Chapter 16 of NAFTA and those provisions remain enshrined both in the treaty and the U.S. immigration law. And yet, in the years since, not much moved further to try to work together on immigration issues. Until recently.

Following the Summit of the Americas in 2022, Canada and Mexico signed onto the “Los Angeles. Declaration on Migration and Protection” along with the United States and more than a dozen other countries in the hemisphere. Although put together rather quickly (by the standards of many international agreements), the L.A. Declaration was an effort to align countries in the Western Hemisphere along a set of principles and actions to manage the significant number of displaced persons and irregular migrants making their way in the Americas, and provided a framework for joint commitments and actions that countries might take. While for much of the hemisphere, the work of migration management is still disjointed, the L.A. declaration has managed to do something that neither NAFTA nor USMCA really managed to do: create a growing partnership between Canada and Mexico in addressing irregular migration.

While the United States has been frantically, and noisily, trying to address the record number of migrants arriving at its border with Mexico over the last several years, Canada and Mexico have more quietly been working together to understand the current migration, what is driving it, how governments might humanely manage it, and how they can work together to help the United States, as the primary destination for most travelers, manage it better. 

The Embassy of Canada in Washington has hosted roundtables and discussions with migration experts from the United States and Mexico, as well as with Mexican government officials and the Canadian government has funded research in the U.S. and Mexico to understand the phenomenon. The two countries, despite the most recent contretemps over there-imposition of visas on Mexican travelers to Canada, have been taking a serious approach to the issues of migration management, and how best to balance the government imperatives of orderly controlled borders with humanitarian needs and international commitments to refugee protection.

What makes this partnership even more effective, is that it is not being conducted with the United States government in the middle. Even in the decades since NAFTA promised a new “North American” identity for the three countries from which to engage, the reality has often been a series of bilateral approaches to most issues. Trade disputes among the countries were mostly bilateral in nature, and migration agreements and efforts at border management ever since President George W. Bush essayed the Security and Prosperity Partnership were held, for the most part, on “dual bilateral” tracks, mainly because Canada and Mexico do not share a common border. Yet, the current migration crisis in the hemisphere is affecting all three countries, and not just regarding each other's nationals. The massive exodus of Venezuelans into Latin America and now northward, the collapse of government in Haiti (a country with close ties to Canada over the years--particularly its francophone population) and the newer arrival of asylum-seekers from India and China have created more shared interests. The increased emigration from Cuba, a country that only the United States among the three has no direct diplomatic relations with, creates further shared interests between Canada and Mexico.

As the United States has found itself mired in toxic polarization around the issues of migration and the border, reeling from policy to policy as courts regularly intervene, and dealing with challenges to its federal system of government regarding immigration, the steady work of Mexico and Canada to look at unique and humane solutions has been needed. And together, they have moved to assist the United States with the issues, partnering to help establish Safe Mobility Offices in four countries in Latin America, with Canada offering screening for both refugee resettlement and work opportunities and Mexico gaining Spain’s participation as well. The countries are discussing development and other assistance in both sending and transit countries, and all three countries have increased support for the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in the hemisphere.

Moreover, the demographic complementarity of the region, where the median age in Canada (41 years) and the U.S. (38.9 years) vis-a-vis Mexico’s 29 years, makes it  also necessary to find ways to develop a comprehensive North American migration management strategy. At the end of the day, migration can also benefit the region in terms of productivity and innovation. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), every additional 1% of immigration has the potential to increase GDP growth between 1.5% to 2% in receiving countries. Additionally, 55% of American startups valued at over one billion dollars, and at least 45% of the companies in the Fortune 500 ranking were founded by at least one immigrant or their descendants. In addition, according to the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, net immigration increasingly will account for all population growth beginning after 2040.

When we speak about the “North American Way” we often talk about shared cultural, economic, trade, and business connections. Migration has frequently been more of an area of irritation if not outright conflict. And yet, the current era of migration has created an opportunity for the three countries to truly develop a “North American Way” on migration. This time, possibly, led not by the United States but in spite of it.