Dorm duper

Not all homeless are illegal settlers. Some are simply stranded.

Among the most famous grounded people is WikiLeaks founder and whistleblower Julian Assange who took asylum at the embassy of Ecuador in London from 2012 to 2019 to avoid extradition to the United States, where he is wanted for espionage for posting online its military's war logs.

Another was Mehran Karimi Nasseri, the Iranian asylum seeker who was forced to live at a terminal of Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris, France for several years because authorities could not ascertain his identity after allegedly losing his briefcase containing his passport and other personal records while en route to London. He was deported to France and got stuck in the airport as he could not prove his refugee status.

According to Wikipedia, Nasseri was stranded at the said terminal from 26 August 1988 until he was hospitalized in July 2006. His case inspired the 1993 film "Lost in Transit."

He wrote an autobiography which was published as a book titled "The Terminal Man" in 2004. It inspired a second film, "The Terminal" that starred Tom Hanks.

Nasseri lived in a Paris shelter since 2008 and reportedly returned to living in the terminal where he died of natural causes last Saturday at the age of 77.

Meanwhile, the resident status of William Curry of Alabama at Stanford University in California ended last month.

Curry, who claims to live in Palo Alto, lived in different dormitories on the campus starting in December 2021, the university's newspaper, Stanford Daily, reported.

According to CNN, Stanford Daily added that Curry reportedly "socialized with the other residents" and was regularly let into dorms by some resident assistants.

However, without any enrollment and residency record with the university, the pretender's cover was blown making his stay on the campus illegal.

When officials finally caught him, he was handed the stay-away letter citing him for trespassing, leading to his ban.

Stanford is reviewing its security procedures to avoid a similar incident from happening again.