Ian Austen, one of The New York Times Canadian correspondents wrote about Polman, after discussing her with Rukmini Callimachi, The New York Times reporter who first found her, in the refugee camp in Syria. He wrote that Callimachi speculated that she first identified herself as a Canadian to her American captors because she would be treated more leniently, as a Canadian, only to realize that Canadians were "in limbo". Callamachi speculated that Polman started to identify as an American when she realized that while Americans might face prosecution upon repatriation, at least they were being repatriated.
