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Even if Sharif had no passport, as was reported, and even though he provided a slightly different name when entering Canada, our system should have identified him and stopped him from entering our country.

But the system didn’t do that, and so my question to the government was simple: Why not?

Well, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety Mark Holland answered my question in a letter to the editor.

He let it be known that “Sharif’s identity was indeed confirmed by CBSA through both biometrics and biographical information”.

But Holland also stated that “your admissibility to another country does not affect your ability to enter Canada or make an asylum claim.”

In other words, Canada knew Sharif had entered the U.S. illegally. We knew he had a deportation order from the U.S., and we knew he was violating the terms of his deportation by showing up in Canada.

And yet, we let him into Canada anyway.

Holland justifies this decision by noting “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a statement saying that he ‘had no known criminal history at the time of his encounters with ICE.’”

Common sense tells us it’s possible Sharif had no known criminal history because he came from Somalia, a country with no viable government and thus no one to keep track of crimes.

Since arriving in North America — via Mexico, for some unknown reason — Sharif entered the U.S. illegally, failed to show up for his immigration hearing and skipped the country to come to Canada.