Walker's fence

Fence On The Canadian Border Is A ‘Legitimate Issue’ Says Scott Walker

by Katie Valentine

Republican Presidential candidate Scott Walker said Sunday that he thought building a wall along the U.S.-Canada border was a “legitimate” issue for the United States to consider.

Walker was asked about border control by Meet the Press’ Chuck Todd, who asked the Wisconsin Governor why he — and other presidential candidates — focuses so heavily on the U.S.’s southern border.

“Why are we always talking about the southern border, and building a fence there — we don’t talk about the northern border,” Todd said. “Do we want to build a wall north of the border?”

Walker said that law enforcement in New Hampshire have raised “legitimate concerns” about that issue to him.

“That is a legitimate issue for us to look at,” he said. Overall, Walker said, national security “starts with securing the homeland.”

“It wasn’t just about building a wall and securing our borders,” he said. “It was also about making sure our intelligence community has the ability for counterterrorism and the ability to go after the infrastructure they need to protect us.”

Republican presidential candidates and lawmakers have focused heavily on securing the country’s southern border, but it’s true that few have talked about the border with Canada. But, as Westminster College political science professor Tobias T. Gibson noted in the Hill in 2014, “no successful terrorist attack on the United States has occurred from someone crossing the border from Canada.” There have been attempted plots, he said, but they occurred before September 11, which means before tougher security measures were implemented along the U.S.-Canada border.

Walker also reiterated his concerns with the southern border Sunday.

“I think we need to secure borders in general,” he said. We spend all this money on TSA. But I think right now one of the most rampant spots is on our southern-based border…if part of what we’re trying to do is protect ourself — set aside immigration from it — but protect ourselves from risk out there, I think we need to make sure we have a secure border.”

Walker, who’s trailing behind Trump and other Republicans in the polls, has developed an anti-immigration position during his run for president. He said Sunday that he wants to “secure the border, enforce the laws,” and grant “no amnesty.” He said in April that “if someone wants to be a citizen, they have to go back to their country of origin and get in line behind everybody else who’s waiting.” He’s also made comments about limiting legal immigration to protect “American workers and American wages.

But Walker isn’t the only Republican presidential candidate to talk about securing the border or limiting immigration. Donald Trump has said he’d deport the country’s undocumented immigrants and build a wall along the United States’ southern border.

“It’s gonna be a great wall,” Trump said earlier this month. “This will be a wall with a big, very beautiful door because we want the legals to come back into the country.”

And multiple Republican candidates have called for an end to birthright citizenship, which would mean that children born in the U.S. to parents from other countries wouldn’t automatically become citizens.