US President Joe Biden has been in Ottawa since Thursday evening, March 23, where he is making his first official visit to the country in his presidential term.

Aside from the smiles and handshakes in front of the cameras, the media’s attention is focused on deals expected to be signed by Biden and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the visit.

Before Biden landed in Ottawa late on Thursday, news broke that the two countries had reached an agreement on illegal immigration.

The exact details of this new immigration deal are not yet known, but Canada has reportedly agreed to accept 15,000 immigrants through official channels and procedures. The agreement also reportedly allows both countries to expel asylum seekers who cross their borders without permission.

The talks that Biden and Trudeau will hold today, Friday, are also expected to cover defense and security issues. The Chinese spy balloon case, North Korea’s missile tests and Russia’s alleged advances in missile technology have raised the level of wariness about North American defense, according to an article on Eurasia Network’s Gzero website.

A recent Maru Public/GZERO poll shows that the vast majority of Americans and Canadians (93% and 91% respectively) want the two countries to step up their joint security efforts. In the same context, most Canadians are in favor of either a joint US-Canadian missile defense system or the deployment of US missiles on Canadian soil.

Biden, for his part, is expected to pressure Trudeau to increase Canada’s defense spending as Ottawa falls short of NATO’s 2% GDP target.

At the same time, when the war in Ukraine remained in the background, the issue of Arctic defense came to the fore again.

According to Gzero