Sieve or Shield? High Tech Firms and Entrepreneurs and the Impacts of COVID 19 on North American Border Regions

This study examines the role of international borders in the era ofthe Covid-19 pandemic, which led to unprecedented nationaldecisions to close borders in order to contain the domesticcontagion. The idea that borders act as shields conflicts with theneeds of cross-border regions, as they rely on networks straddlingthe borders for goods and services’ provisions. This paperexplores different approaches at individual, local, and regionalpolicy levels used to counterbalance such impacts. As evidencedby North American border closures to most non-citizens seekingentry (shield effects), it is important to understand howprofessionals, firms, and their networks exercised various forms ofagency (sieve effects) to negotiate the border and its policiesduring this most unusual time. Drawing from a comparativestudy between two North American border regions distinguishedfor their thriving innovative business ecosystems – Cascadia(Seattle-Vancouver) along the Canada-U.S. border and Calibaja(San Diego-Tijuana) along the Mexico-U.S. border – we seek tounderstand how COVID-19 measures have influenced cross-border economies through unprecedented responses to crisismanagement.