Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) interviewed him and interacted with him professionally.

He was issued travel documents based on his claim to be American.

All of these interactions — with trained professionals who were not operating from the same place of desperate hope as the family — and yet he persisted.

In part, he persisted because his impersonation was technically competent.

He had done extensive research.

He could answer questions about Nicholas’s past.

He maintained the central fiction of his story — the trafficking narrative — with consistency and emotional conviction.

In part, he persisted because the people with professional responsibility for verifying his identity were working within systems that had their own limitations.