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In northwestern Washington State, the United States Border Patrol expanded its operations inland from the international boundary with Canada in 2007. The expansion resulted in the frequent questioning and detention of community members who are Latino, non-timber forest workers, and people of color until such practices became less common by 2012. These tactics reflect a broader pattern of racial profiling through inland policing implemented across the US border with Canada. In this paper, I make the case for a critical race approach to understanding bordering practices in settings coded as 'peaceful' or without racial tensions. Towards this end, I analyze how racialized exclusions in northwestern Washington are articulated across scales, from local forest management, to federal policy. Further, I trace the relational construction of the western US borderlands with Canada and Mexico - spaces connected by a common heritage of conquest, although generally not conceptualized as such. My argument is that racial thinking is inherent to the production and maintenance of United States borders. A critical race approach is crucial at a time when practices carried out in the name of 'homeland security' threaten the wellbeing of borderland communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, the authors analyze the empirical process of securitization of the US–Canada border and then reflect on the model proposed by the Copenhagen School. We argue that securitization theory oversimplifies the political process of securitizing moves and audience acceptance. Rather than attributing securitization to a singular speaker addressing a specific audience, we present overlapping and ongoing language security games performed by varying relevant actors during the key period between the Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act (IRTPA) in December 2004 and the signing of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP) in June 2005, showing how multiple speakers participate in the continuing construction of a context in which this issue is increasingly treated as a matter of security. We also explore the language adopted by participants in the field, focusing on an expert panel convened by the Homeland Security Institute. We conclude that in the securitization of the US–Canada border there are inconsistencies between truth and discourse, as well as significant distinctions between official and bureaucratic discourses, further emphasizing the importance of a comprehensive model of securitization. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]