kettle1

Are the "staff" in Canada, US citizens? Or do they work for the US government? Either way, I agree this should not have happened.

What computer gave the "agent" this info on her past. Was it TSA, Customs, what? And again, did this happen in the USA or Canada?

On the insurance she purchased. I hope the agent sleeps well tonight. If ever a policy should kick in - this is it. She did nothing wrong!

atsak

Preclearance agents in Canada (Toronto) are US citizens and US government employees which are employed by the DHS just like any other border entry point on US soil. The actual denial happens at the airport in Toronto. Many of the agents actually live in Canada (one lives near me) but some drive from Buffalo or Niagara Falls NY I suspect, though I don't actually know that for sure.

It's not clear how the DHS would have this information. They shouldn't be able to access healthcare information, but they appear to have it based on this story.

This is pretty disgraceful. It's one thing if the psychiatric problem is active and untreated - then you are a danger. But a well controlled and medicated condition should never be refused. It's no different than diabetes or a cold.

Steve M

Both. They are regular sworn CBP officers that live and work for a time in Canada, although while in Canada they do not have police powers.

I disagree. Insurance policies in general don't work on the principle of "if you suffer a loss and did nothing wrong, then you get paid." Unless it's an "all perils" policy, the policy spells out in advance and in detail what situations and circumstances the policy provides coverage for. If what happens is not a named peril in the policy, then it doesn't cover it. There are a wide variety of travel policies out there, and they offer varying degrees of coverage for varying prices. Some people go with inexpensive policies that provide fewer covered situations. Others might by a more expensive policy that covers more. Apparently being denied entry to a country was not a covered event in this woman's policy, so I'm not sure why you'd expect it to pay out.

kettle1

Agree. So every TSA, Customs agent in Canada are residents of the USA? IS THIS TRUE AT ALL CANADIAN AIRPORTS? This woman should have been able to travel. Is the data given to the agents from the USA or Canada?

Something sounds fishy.

HMPS

Makes sense but can Canada handle the uproar from the NRA ?

ICE agents have very broad discretionary powers.

moeve

The problem in this case is that she had absolutely no way of knowing that she would be denied this flight to a cruise that would have taken her out of the US in something like 48 hours or less.

This opens a whole new can of worms for cruisers and it could put a dent into the cruise industry business if this sort of denial becomes popular. Bear in mind it can work in both directions too.

tangey

Do Canadians have to file the equivalent of the ESTA that uk visitors have to fill in as part of the visa waiver programme? If so, does it include some basic health questions, I could be wrong but I have a vague recollection that the ESTA asks some health questions, can't recall if one of them is "mental Heath" related.

ldsant

This is so disturbing on so many levels.
BTW - how come HIPPA regulations aren't being mentioned(the health privacy act)?

ubernostrum

The thing that's tripping me up here is the mention that the incident in 2001 involved a suicide attempt. That can easily show up in more than just medical records -- law enforcement can get involved in those, and law-enforcement records are pretty widely understood to be something that immigration agencies have access to. So if there's a later hospitalization, then the standard "danger to self or others" denial very much comes into play from CBP/DHS's standpoint. Even if they don't mention it to her in the encounter at preclearance, it's going to be in their records as a flag to watch out for.

Which leaves the question of how they knew about the recent hospitalization/treatment, since that's what the decision was apparently based on. And... it's unclear how they knew.

While it's certainly theoretically possible that there is a secret program of illegally collecting/sharing health information, I'm a bit skeptical in this case, as I've been in a few other cases of people alleging they were denied entry due to illegally-collected data.

The first and foremost problem is that when Snowden revealed the NSA data-collection programs, the immediate response was crackdown, manhunt, brand him as a traitor, etc., and the existence of such programs was considered classified and highly secret.

So the idea that a random DHS agent would carelessly disclose a medical-information-collection program in this fashion does not seem hugely likely to me (in fact, I doubt that agents at the preclearance stations would even have knowledge of such a program or of the data it would provide, precisely in order to keep them from disclosing its existence).

The second problem is that there are plenty of alternative methods for finding this information out. Here's one: if anyone looked in her bags (a bag search is certainly something border agents can conduct), they might have found medications, paperwork, or plenty of other telltale indicators of recent mental health problems. The article mentions an attempt to have her psychiatrist vouch for her current health -- if she had any sort of letter or other documentation on her, that's an immediate giveaway.

And to be honest, it's possible that she disclosed it without realizing it. And I'm not getting into whether she has accurate recall of her words/actions -- when interacting with law enforcement, people very often give away a lot of information without realizing it, and without realizing that the goal was to obtain that information for use against them.

So until there's a lot more information about just what happened and how the decision was made, I'm going to be very skeptical of this situation.

DCBob

That's not a bad idea! And I'm a US citizen.

DCBob

Canadian citizens and permanent residents are treated exactly the same as U.S. citizens. They get identical treatment - show your passport and customs declaration form, nothing else. Most Canadians have never heard of any ESTA. Over 300,000 people cross the U.S.-Canadian border every day.

You would know this if you traveled overseas frequently and listened to the FAs give their pre-landing instructions (assuming they are doing their job). And they can be pulled aside just as Americans are to have their luggage searched by U.S. Customs & Border Protection. No other country is so categorized and that's as it should be for our closest friend and neighbor (kind of like Australia and New Zealand). Sorry, UK residents - the US still remembers the War of 1812 and won't do the same for you.

IrishDoesntFlyNow

HIPPA regulations don't apply. HIPPA regulations apply only to "covered entities" as defined within the regulations. HIPPA regulations cover the sharing of medical information by covered entities. Any individual can choose to share his or her own medical information with anyone.

Further, there's nothing in the regulations that restricts what can be asked. DHS employees are not "covered entities" under HIPPA regulations. They can ask an individual anything they want to ask. It's then up to the individual whether/how much of her/his medical history (s)he chooses to disclose.

~~ Irish

InkUnderNails

As a gun owner and a CWP holder, I may surprisingly agree with you if you will allow me a couple of reasonable stipulations. First, the regulation denying my admissibility to Canada is openly published and disclosed so that I can make an informed decision in regards to choosing to travel to Canada. Second, I am offered an opportunity to "pre-clear" by providing my personal info and getting a decision before travel begins.

The border crossing crap shoot both ways should be an embarrassment to both countries. The process by which one shows up and a determination is made on the spot leads to far too many horror stories that could have been prevented with open regulatory policies.

HMPS

True....That is why we buy insurance, especially on an expensive cruise - tour when non US citizens accompany us. Expensive but comes in handy.

atsak

To further DCBob's comments; we are treated pretty similarly to American's entering the US (as are they when they come to Canada) except for some important distinctions:

1. We can't be planning to stay for longer than 6 months.
2. We can't be planning to "work" except for meetings or sales type work
3. We can be denied entry at their discretion

There is no visa waiver nor ESTA for Canadians. Personally for example have Nexus and Global Entry, which means I do not even see an DHS agent when crossing by air except to hand in my form to be stamped just prior to security, unless I am sent to secondary (which has happened once and was uneventful). When I cross by land I am sometimes questioned more thoroughly but nearly always merely do you have anything to declare and waved through (which is how it should be since I am 100% compliant in my crossings in both directions). I cross approximately 1 - 2 times a month.

I agree with InkUnderNails that it might be nice to have a "pre clearance" option if you happen to have something "on your record" that is perhaps out of the ordinary and you'd like to know for sure. We don't care if you own guns in Canada (at one point there were more guns per capita in Canada than the US, though I do not know if that's still true and we do not really have a constitutional right to them), but we'd rather you left them at home.

I think what needs to happen is that the CBP should come clean about where the info came from. If it's law enforcement, fine. If it's health records, time for a change. Of course they won't since they prefer the smoke and mirrors approach to security. It's too bad really. This was a bad decision by a front line employee that's making the department look awful.