The usual path taken by men, women and children seeking to come to Canada as refugees can be long and complicated.

The Canadian government may be hoping to speed up this process as it attempts to meet its target of bringing in 25,000 Syrian and other refugees by the end of December. In spite of the short timeline, the government has promised intense and rigorous security checks of each person who arrives in Canada.

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Typically, a person seeking asylum here needs to pass through several layers of approval and screening, which includes running the refugee’s file against databases maintained by the Canada Border Services Agency, Interpol, CSIS and similar databases in allied countries.

Here’s a look at how the process usually unfolds, and how the government might be able to bring people over halfway through, and then complete the screenings on Canadian soil.

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