Four minutes was all it took for Hang (Sam) Li to lose his permanent residence in Canada.

That was the amount of time Officer AH11413 spent before approving an application to voluntarily surrender Li’s status — without noticing it had been fraudulently filed by someone else and was, as the Edmonton man claims, riddled with errors that should have been trivially easy to check.

For 115 days in 2023, said Li in a lawsuit against Ottawa, he was without legal status, authorization to work, provincial health care insurance and access to social services while fighting to convince immigration officials he was a victim of identity theft and to have the “unlawful revocation” decision reconsidered.

The 35-year-old immigrant from China is seeking compensation from the federal government in court

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