In the news: Roma take complex route via Europe, Mexico to seek asylum in Canada
A Dodge Caravan with California licence plates and a dozen passengers zipped across the border between Vermont and Quebec in October, heading north in a southbound lane unblocked by traffic.
Border agents could only watch as the van disappeared into Quebec. But the vehicle and its occupants didn’t try to disappear.
About 30 kilometres later, they stopped in a Walmart parking lot in Magog, Que., and asked someone to call the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. When the Mounties arrived, the Roma occupants of the vehicle applied for political asylum.
“It’s as though they had it programmed into their GPS,” said Magog police spokesman Paul Tear.