DETROIT – U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and Canada’s minister of public safety have signed an agreement to allow the two nations to help enforce each others’ laws across the border.

Napolitano and Peter Van Loan signed the agreement Tuesday at the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Detroit and Windsor, Ontario.

The pact will allow officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and U.S. Coast Guard to ride each others’ vessels on joint patrols and specific enforcement operations. Vessels now must stop at the border and call the other country’s agencies for help.

Such efforts have been tested in the past, such as during Super Bowl XL in Detroit in 2006.