There have now been several reports in Canadian media about travellers being asked at the border what they think of the U.S. President and being denied entry when they did not express their unqualified approval of Mr. Trump. (Apparently, American citizens returning from abroad have also been asked this question, which is even more shocking.)
This got me thinking about what the right answer would be if one wanted to gain entry to the United States.
Would something like, “I am sure that he has the best interests of your country at heart” be sufficient? Or would you have to go further and say, “He is a great golfer, a stable genius, and very handsome?”
It seems to me that having to express approval of a particular politician should not be a prerequisite for admission to a supposedly democratic country, but hey, what do I know?
I wonder whether there is room to expand this principle to the corporate world. Should applicants for jobs at Tesla have to state their approval of Elon Musk? (For all I know, perhaps they already do.)
And how about law firms? We already see that U.S. law firms would be well advised to seek approval of the Republican Party before representing clients whose views do not align with the Administration. Presumably, they would want to avoid hiring lawyers and staff who might say or do the wrong thing and get them in trouble, so it would it not be perfectly reasonable to ask applicants what they think of Mr. Trump?
Surely, we can apply this new doctrine, which I will call, “Follow the Supreme Leader,” in other ways as well. If I were still the Managing Partner of a law firm (God forbid!), it would be really cool to make every applicant express approval of me as part of the hiring process.
Now, back to the situation at the border. I suppose that I could lie and say that I love President Trump, but then they might quote my social media posts to me and detain me for lying to an immigration officer. And we have all seen the posts from Canadians who were detained in abominable conditions for lesser offenses.
I don’t think that I like where all of this is going, but maybe that is just because we seniors are resistant to change. But just to be on the safe side, I think I will avoid travelling to the U.S. and spend my money in Canada until the Americans reverse course from this Orwellian nightmare.
This article was originally published by Law360 Canada, part of LexisNexis Canada Inc.