[villiros]

Actually, he only needs a visa to enter the country. The Geneva Convention allows anyone to present at a border post and claim refugee protection (with a few exceptions, but visas aren't included in those).

There are various laws that require careers to prevent people without visas arriving at borders, but those are aimed at making it harder to ask for protection. He managed to work around those; mission accomplished.

[ergo98]

You seem to be wording your reply as if you're somehow disagreeing with what I posted, and you've gotten the corresponding upvotes.

-He needs to set foot on actual Canadian soil to claim refugee status

-He can't walk to the border. He needs to make use of a boat or a plane

-Air carriers enforce requirements on behalf of the countries they fly to, like "you need a visa to go to Canada if you're Chinese". This is because countries like Canada like the concept of refugee protections more than the actual practice of them: they want to put barriers up to stop people from actually claiming it.

Bit of a conundrum there, no?

-So he used the ID of someone who wouldn't need a visa/passport, along with the mask, to essentially get past the barrier that the air carrier would not have brought him to Canada otherwise.

The original person claimed, wrongly, that " And he didn't even use it to try and get into Canada, just out of HK.", yet he used the mask to get into Canada by way of getting on an air carrier that wouldn't have let him on otherwise, at which point he was assured entry to Canada and consideration via the refugee program.

[villiros]

You are right. He needed a visa to get on the flight. However, my understanding of the refugee stuff is that one doesn't actually need to enter the country. You're not inside the country till after the border guard has waved you through; but you can still ask for protection while at the border. He's probably still in detention, which doesn't really count as being in the country in my book. He used the mask to try and get protection, not simply enter Canada. Very different motive.

This is descending into analty, so I'll stop now :)