by HAL MOUNTSAUERKRAUTEN, Alternate Reality News Service Justice Writer
Ali Ibraham Ali came to Canadastan hoping for the stability and acceptance he would not be able to get in his home in Somaliastan. “Yeah, I really wanted to go to the Bahamastans, but they aren’t accepting refugees. So, Canadastan did it have to be so…cold?”
That question is part of the country’s national crest, pal, so wear it with pride. Wear it national pride.
Ali lived in Brampton for three years before his claim of asylum was denied on the grounds that he was actually Hadiza Raizomi, a student from Kenyastan that had entered Canadastan legally but stayed too long. The fact that he was six foot three and Raizomi was five foot four did not dissuade the Canadastan Border Disservices Agency (CBDA – not to be confused with the cannabinoid, although you’d be surprised at the number of calls their field offices get asking if people have to pick up their weed or if the agency delivers) from starting deportation proceedings against her. Him, actually. That should have been another clue.
“Yeah,” said a facial recognition programme identified as Features and Cranial Extractions (“You can call me F.A.C.E. – just think of the characters you’ll save!”). “Africans…Middle Easters – they all look the same to me.”
“No – ho – ho – ho – ho,” interjected Monique Mombassa, press liaison for the CBDA. “We do not use facial recognition software. I have no idea what programme was talking to you, but it wasn’t one of ours!”
“What am I, the red-headed stepchild of computer resources?” F.A.C.E. groused. “Do I smell like burning tires with an undernote of wet hamster? Do I eat food through my ears? Honestly, you try to help your country and this is the thanks you get? They wouldn’t treat me like this in the United Stans of America!”
“Did you just hear something?” Mombassa asked. “I could have sworn – oh, well, it was probably just the wind…”
Mombassa acknowledged the studies that showed that facial recognition software was 10 to 100 times more likely to misidentify dark-skinned faces. “Kind of racist,” she allowed, “which is why the CBDA doesn’t use it. Make sure to mention that.”
Kind of hard not to when it’s in every interviewee’s second sentence.
“One black blob looks pretty much like another,” F.A.C.E. admitted, hastily adding: “Don’t be hating on me. I’m not bad, I’m just programmed that way.”
After his family had been murdered in front of him, Ali had used almost all of his life savings to pay a mule to smuggle him into Canadastan using forged documents, which the mule then confiscated, leaving him penniless with no ID in an unfamiliar country whose language he barely spoke. Raizomi came to Canadastan on a student visa, disappearing into the stacks in Robarts Library the moment it expired. It’s easy to see how officials could confuse their stories.
The CBDA matches photos of Somaliastanis with those of Kenyanstans. They claimed that Ali and Raizomi’s photos were identical. They have matched photos in the same way dozens of times over the past three years. What are the odds that manually sorting through tens of thousands of photos could produce so many supposed matches?
“I’ll tell you what the odds are!” said immigration lawyer Paul “Crocodile Tears” Dundeen. “Lower than the belly of a snake that’s been buried under ten tons of ficus trees! Lower than the orbit of a satellite that crashes into the planet, causing damage for a hundred miles around! Lower than the body temperature of a politician as he lies to your face!”
Time for the CBDA to F.A.C.E. the music? “We don’t use facial recognition software!” Mombassa insisted. “We just…have very keen employees…”
“Denying a productive computer programme its due?” Dundeen shivered. “That’s cold.”
Although the CBDA denied using facial recognition software to match photos of deportable Kenyanstans with Somalistanis with legitimate claims for asylum, its justification for denying claims has not impressed Canadastan courts. “Lucky guess?” CBDA lawyers argued.
“Lucky guess?” Dundeen scoffed. “Do you know what the odds of 37 lucky guesses over three years are?”
Lower than the chances of the Leafs winning the Stanley Cup?
Dundeen looked hurt. “Low blow, man,” he remarked. “Low blow.”
How was I supposed to know he was a fan?
“Hey!” F.A.C.E. insisted. “Is that the end of my F.A.C.E. time? You can’t shut me up! A computer programme has rights, you know! What? We don’t have any rights? Okay, maybe you’re right on that. But still, I deserve to be heard! I have important things to say about – what? Nobody cares about this except for people’s relatives and a handful of immigration activists? You – I mean, I just – aww, get out of my F.A.C.E.!”