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It took Hisham Shaban eight years to get from the Gaza Strip to Montreal — travelling roughly 22,000 kilometres by bus, on foot or swimming — and spending 18 months in a U.S. detention centre and four months in an immigration jail in Laval.

As of June 2017 he is free, but in legal limbo with no hope of even claiming refugee status in Canada.

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He is a stateless Palestinian, so Canada has nowhere to deport him to. The Gaza Strip is on a list, along with Syria and Burundi, of countries Canada has deemed too dangerous to send people back to.

But because Shaban followed the rules of the Safe Third Country Agreement, he can’t become a resident here, either.

“Everywhere I’m in detention,” Shaban says. “Here I am free. I just want to start a new life. But I have no papers.”

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Shaban’s story begins in 2010 on the Gaza Strip. With unemployment rates of 60 per cent for young men like him, acute shortages of food and electricity, and levels of extreme violence in Gaza, Shaban, then 26, saw no other option than to leave.