02 FEB 2017: Jest in case you hadn’t heard: According to a White House source that prefers to remain anonymous, as part of his sweeping immigration reforms, TV reality show personality, property magnate and President of the United States Donald J. Trump is rumored to be shifting his focus to the Canadian border.
When not signing executive orders in the Oval Office – have you noticed how much his signature looks like the Neiman Marcus logo – it seems ‘The Donald’ has been taking a crash course aimed at improving his knowledge of the world’s geography and peoples. Daughter Ivanka reportedly cajoled daddy into doing this after he had privately suggested that “Hawaiians” visiting the US should be required to have visas and then talked about an article he’d read on the Internet stating that, “China is preparing to invade Hong Kong, Taiwan or one of those island countries.”
Not wishing to overwhelm the Leader of the Free World, to date his geography lessons have chiefly consisted of watching reruns of the 90’s TV game show, ‘Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?’
While the president was watching, an 11-year-old contestant was asked the question, “Where is the longest undefended international border in the world?” and answered correctly with, “It’s, it’s, uhm, between Canada and America.” Then for good measure, host Greg Lee threw in the fact that, “The so-called ‘International Boundary’ stretches ‘from sea to shining sea’ and is 5,525 miles long.”
Apparently the resulting scream of anguish could be heard through the closed Oval Office door. Aides rushed in to see what was wrong to be greeted by an apoplectic Prez howling (expletives deleted), “Why does it take this Carmen Sandiego dude to tell me that the border with Canada is not only ‘undefended’ but it’s like … three times as long as the Mexican one? How the hell are we ever going to get Pierre Trudeau to pay for such a wall?”
It apparently took senior members of the administration some time to placate the enraged president with the information that, according to US intelligence (at the mention of which the president rolled his eyes and sniggered) the Canadians have been secretly planning to build their own wall to keep fleeing US citizens out of their country.
He added, “I assure you Mister President, no matter how many of Hillary’s pals move there, we really don’t see Canada as any kind of a threat.”
Given recent events however, the president’s response was unmoved. “Yeah yeah, but how are we going to turn Canadians back if they don’t look, you know, like real Canadians when they arrive at JFK or wherever? We certainly don’t need any more fake news stories about airport demonstrations.”
The ensuing explanation to the president as to how the vast majority of Canadians flying into the US are in fact pre-cleared (or not) by US passport officers while still at a Canadian airport, found the big guy at a rare loss for words.
“You mean we can have our people refuse them entry before they even leave their own country. No more lying press stories – we don’t have to send them back, they just never get here?” the astonished Trump responded, before adding, “That’s YUGE. I’m going to tweet about it right now before anyone finds out.”
When the history of the Trump administration’s, “keep your own poor and please don’t send us your huddled masses” immigration policy is written, his “preclearance” enlightenment could turn out to have been a seminal moment.
There has been no official word from the Trump White House as yet, but this could turn out to be a godsend for carriers like Porter who have been lobbying for years to get US preclearance at Toronto’s Billy Bishop Airport: Now the Trumpsters won’t be able to get it there fast enough.
The expanded ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) presence at secondary and maybe even tertiary Canadian airports will however feature one nominal difference – rather than ‘Pre-clearance’ it will henceforth be designated as ‘Pre-denial’…
Jest kidding.