This page contains Congressional resolutions. Resolutions indicate the topics that legislators care about, but cannot legislate about.

98-MGC3 on May 12, 1998

• WHEREAS, the United States and Canada share the longest undefended border in the world; and
• WHEREAS, the United States and Canada have the largest bilateral trade relationship in the world, exceeding $1 billion every day; and
• WHEREAS, the rate of cross-border traffic is steadily increasing, with billions of dollars worth of goods and tens of millions of American and Canadian citizens crossing the land border each year; and
• WHEREAS, Section 110 of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 requires the U.S. Attorney General to develop an automated entry-exit control system to register “all aliens” entering and departing the United States; and
• WHEREAS, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service has indicated that it cannot meet the September 30, 1998 deadline for implementing the entry and exit tracking system and that it does not have the appropriation necessary to put the system in place; and
• WHEREAS, this system will place an unmanageable requirement on border-crossing services, impose serious delays at the Canada-U.S. land border and result in unintended negative consequences for international trade, tourism, and the economies in our region; and
• WHEREAS, reports about serious congestion at the Canada - U.S. border have generated concern and uncertainty in the business community; now therefore be it
• RESOLVED, that the Midwestern Governors’ Conference calls on Congress and the President to work to enact legislation this year that suspends implementation of Section 110 until they can ensure that any entry-exit control system, if deemed necessary, does not distrupt trade, tourism or other legitimate cross border traffic at land border points of entry.

Participating counts on VoteMatch question 13. Question 13: Support & expand free trade Scores: -2=Strongly oppose; -1=Oppose; 0=neutral; 1=Support; 2=Strongly support.
• Topic: Free Trade
• Headline: Ease Canadian border-crossing rules (Score: 1)
  
  
• Key for participation codes:
• Sponsorships: p=sponsored; o=co-sponsored; s=signed
• Memberships: c=chair; m=member; e=endorsed; f=profiled; s=scored
• Resolutions: i=introduced; w=wrote; a=adopted
• Cases: w=wrote; j=joined; d=dissented; c=concurred
• Surveys: '+' supports; '-' opposes.