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A Federal Court decision last month, however, allows people from countries such as Italy to have a pre-removal risk assessment (PRAA) to determine how safe it is to deport them to their homeland, meaning they saw another way to remain in Canada without all the hiding.

That brought the couple to the CBSA enforcement office to surrender and apply for a PRAA without fear of being immediately detained and deported.

Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

Before they walked in, however, there was still uncertainty.

“I don’t know if I’m shaking because I’m cold or shaking because I’m nervous,” she said outside the CBSA facility at 10 a.m.

“We gave instructions to our kids: if we don’t call you by 11:30, then you try to reach us. If you can’t reach us, call our lawyer. If you can’t reach him, call all of our friends and let them know.”

She was born into a notorious crime clan in southern Italy, but turned her back on their underworld life. (They spoke to the National Post on condition their first names not be published and the last name of her crime family not be used.)

When a relative, who had been a leader in the Mafia family, became a co-operating witness for the government, the gangsters sought to find him and kill him. Because she had been close to the turncoat, the Mafiosi assumed she knew where he was and pressured her and threatened her, she said.

Her husband, meanwhile, attracted unwanted Mafia attention on his own. He was a civilian who worked undercover for the police. He was investigating her relatives, members of a leading clan in the Sacra Corona Unita, one of Italy’s crime syndicates, he said.