A more perfect union?

The real reason behind President Bush’s push for immigration reform, says author Jerome R. Corsi, is to unite the United States, Mexico and Canada by erasing borders and creating a “North American Union.”

That is the theme of Mr. Corsi’s new book, “The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada,” which says the Bush administration’s “globalist agenda” is leading to a merger of the countries through the implementation of policies and laws to open trade barriers and renovate the highway systems in anticipation of increased travel within the new megastate.

Mr. Corsi said a growing number of Americans think the North American Union is being forced onto Americans. Government officials say the idea is no more than an unjustified conspiracy theory spread through the Internet.

Mr. Corsi said the impetus of the plan was the creation of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America, announced by leaders of the United States, Mexico and Canada at Waco, Texas, in 2005.

The White House-led partnership is a trilateral effort to increase security and enhance prosperity through greater cooperation and information sharing, according to the SPP’s Web site (www.spp.gov).

The SPP is not a treaty or agreement, but the Web site calls it a dialogue among the countries and their leaders.

The Commerce Department coordinates the prosperity component, and the Homeland Security Department coordinates the security component, added shortly after the September 11 terrorist attacks. The State Department ensures the two are consistent with foreign policy.

Mr. Corsi also is a co-author of the 2004 bestseller “Unfit For Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry.” He said he is considering running as the Constitution Party’s 2008 presidential candidate.

Americans, he said, should not believe the official stance of the SPP. He calls the partnership unconstitutional.

“The SPP was really a way we would progressively open borders between the U.S. and Canada and the U.S. and Mexico,” Mr. Corsi said.

Commerce Department spokesman Richard Mills said, “The SPP is merely a mechanism for the three countries to coordinate and try to reduce red tape and work on issues, whether it’s border issues, security or health security.”

Mr. Corsi said the North American Union is being implemented quietly, just as the European Union was created and implemented in 1957.

“If you look at how the European Union was created, there was a group of elite who decided nationalism had been the cause of the two world wars, and they claimed their goal was of a regional government,” Mr. Corsi said.

The SPP does not involve any such plan, Mr. Mills said.

“The comparison to the European Union is ridiculous. The European Union is an economic union in which the member states have ceded sovereignty,” Mr. Mills said. “That is exactly not what the SPP is about. The U.S. is a sovereign country, Canada is a sovereign country and Mexico is a sovereign country.”

Mr. Corsi has an ally in Rep. Virgil H. Goode Jr., Virginia Republican, who introduced a House resolution in January expressing opposition to entry into a North American Union.

Mr. Goode’s resolution also condemns the construction of a superhighway stretching from the Mexican border to the Canadian border in order to integrate the three countries” transportation systems.

In his book, Mr. Corsi says this superhighway will stretch four football fields wide from Laredo, Texas, to the Canadian border near Duluth, Minn., and will allow containers from “the Far East and China to access the lucrative American market from Mexico.”

Bill Stockton, associate director of the Texas Transportation Institute at Texas A&M University, said Mexico and the United States are working together to improve transportation.

“The two countries do attempt to collaborate in their planning. There’s no point in having such a disconnect with the border because of the high levels of trade between the two countries, especially freight,” Mr. Stockton said. “In some ways, the whole point of [the North American Free Trade Agreement, ratified in 1993] was to maximize commerce between the entities.”

Mr. Stockton said the plans do not include a superhighway from Mexico to Canada.

“Good transportation between the U.S. and Mexico makes just as much sense as planning between Texas and Oklahoma,” Mr. Stockton said. “I don’t think you can lead from trade corridors to political unions.”

Francisco Conde, director of special projects and communications for North America”s SuperCorridor Coalition Inc., a nonprofit that advocates highway improvement, said, “There is no plan by any state government … to do anything of the sort. That person, Jerome Corsi, is a completely unreliable source of information on any level.”

Mr. Conde said bloggers have been spreading the rumor, but “the Internet doesn’t require people to be held accountable for facts.”

“You can’t deny the working groups are doing it,” Mr. Corsi countered. “You can deny the interpretation of it, but they’re doing it.”