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This is a tale of two stories, siphoned from the vaults of the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada. The claimants’ names have been changed to protect the innocent — meaning me. And, despite what you may think, these are not particularly unique cases. If board members could speak freely, they’d admit it.

Let’s start with Lori.

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She sobbed over how Roma are so persecuted in eastern Europe that she was forced to bundle up her offspring and escape. Who wouldn’t be moved by a weeping mother protecting her brood?

Thankfully, some board members are chosen for vigilance. Lori’s English was so perfect that she declined an interpreter fluent in the language of her putative patria. She had kept airline boarding passes, but not one document from the “old country.” No geographer could locate the town Lori said she grew up in.

Inquiring minds finally uncovered that she had been living for years in western Europe, where all her little ones were born, far from the Hungarian Plains or Wallachia or wherever she claimed she decamped from. Obligingly, the constabulary of her country submitted a helpful document — Lori’s lengthy list of criminal convictions.