Canadian woman refused U.S. entry because of depression

[HereSince1628]

Sadly this is the face of the US toward COMMON mental illness at the border. Assuming Canada has similar rates of depression as found in the US, about 15% of Canadians crossing the border could be barred on this basis.

I suspect it's a consequence of the general stigmatizing of the mentally ill pushed by "the monsters among us" narrative typified by comments of VP of the NRA Wayne LaPierre.

Giving this story a home here so it will be easier for people to find later...
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http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/canadian-woman-refused-u-s-entry-because-of-depression-1.2444960


<snip>
Ellen Richardson says she was told by U.S. customs officials at Pearson International Airport on Monday that because she had been hospitalized for clinical depression in June 2012, she could not enter the U.S.

As a result, she missed her flight to New York City and a Caribbean cruise, for which she had paid $6,000.

"I was in shock. I was completely in shock," Richardson said Friday on CBC's Metro Morning. "I had no idea how that was relevant to my seeking entry into the U.S. for a holiday."

Richardson is also an author who published a book, Hope for the Heavy Heart, in 2008 about her struggles with depression.

On a website promoting the book, Richardson describes how she became paralyzed from the waist down after jumping off the Bloor viaduct in a failed suicide attempt in 2001. In the book, Richardson says it was one of three occasions when she tried to take her own life.

Richardson told CBC News that border guards referenced her 2012 hospitalization, and not her book, in denying her entry into the U.S.

At the time, Richardson was told she could only enter the U.S. if a doctor — not her own doctor, but one from a short list of others whom she had never met — signed a document vouching for her. She would also have to pay a fee of $500.

<snip>

[elleng]

1. Gotta make some loud noise about this!!!

[dixiegrrrrl]

2. I really really want to see what law provides for that!

So, USA violating its own anti-discrimination laws, eh?

Hope she has a lawyer.

[HereSince1628]

3. I would too. It may involve a cooperative agreement between the US and Canada

The woman has authored at least one book on her experience with depression.

It's hard to say if that put her on a list of political activists...the FBI and the HSA do keep lists of such.

But it seems my country's fear has forced it across a fairly embarrassing threshold.

[HereSince1628]

4. Here is the Law INA: ACT 212 (8 U.S.C. 11820) (a)

Last edited Sat Nov 30, 2013, 11:35 AM - Edit history (1)

The wording of (A) (iii) (I) seems to be at the heart of the issue. Because she attempted suicide she HAD posed a risk to herself. Because of the way the sentence is broken into parts (A) (iii) (I) doesn't include the qualifier present in (A) (iii) (II) at the end of the sentence "which behavior is likely to recur or to lead to other harmful behavior".

I'm not a lawyer, but it seems that the border guard looked at this as a list of conditions without considering that the statement was also contained in a sentence whose last words refer to both conditions. I suppose one could argue whether the 'or' was inclusive or not. Not being a lawyer or working with the law, I'm not expert on legalese, but it seems that the law could be amended to put the qualifier about 'likely to recur...' into the first part of the sentence to remove the ambiguity.

Of course, that is independent of the privacy issues about health records that were revealled to US border officers by some Canadian agency.

I wonder where the suggestion box is to get ACT 212 (8 U.S.C. 11820)(a)(A)(iii)(I) modified to include the qualifier about likely continuing risk?

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INA: ACT 212 - GENERAL CLASSES OF ALIENS INELIGIBLE TO RECEIVE VISAS AND INELIGIBLE FOR ADMISSION; WAIVERS OF INADMISSIBILLITY

Sec. 212. [8 U.S.C. 1182]

(a) Classes of Aliens Ineligible for Visas or Admission.-Except as otherwise provided in this Act, aliens who are inadmissible under the following paragraphs are ineligible to receive visas and ineligible to be admitted to the United States:

(1) Health-related grounds.-

(A) In general.-Any alien-

(i) who is determined (in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services) to have a communicable disease of public health significance; 1b

(ii) 1 except as provided in subparagraph (C) 1a who seeks admission as an immigrant, or who seeks adjustment of status to the status of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence, and who has failed to present documentation of having received vaccination against vaccine-preventable diseases, which shall include at least the following diseases: mumps, measles, rubella, polio, tetanus and diphtheria toxoids, pertussis, influenza type B and hepatitis B, and any other vaccinations against vaccine-preventable diseases recommended by the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices,

(iii) who is determined (in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services in consultation with the Attorney General)-

(I) to have a physical or mental disorder and behavior associated with the disorder that may pose, or has posed, a threat to the property, safety, or welfare of the alien or others, or

(II) to have had a physical or mental disorder and a history of behavior associated with the disorder, which behavior has posed a threat to the property, safety, or welfare of the alien or others and which behavior is likely to recur or to lead to other harmful behavior, or

(iv) who is determined (in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services) to be a drug abuser or addict, is inadmissible.

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Several things..

First, kudos to you for finding this!
One of the reasons DU is a great place.

2nd...this is mind boggling. Someone went to all this trouble to make addiction and mental illness a disqualifier for even daytrippers across the border.
When I think of all the times I drove into Canada for some of that good ole BC Bud....
and, having smoked some, drove back to Seattle.

3rd...there is NO leeway in this law for recovery/remission of mental or addiction problems.
PLUS
drug addiction is lumped together with mental disorders, with no distinction of mild/moderate/severe levels.

With this big push to have all medical histories in computers, such a law can be so easily abused.

I am still trying to figure out what kind of physical problem one could have which would pose

a threat to the property, safety, or welfare of the alien or others,

Bad bad bad law.



[font style=color:#FF0000;]there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there?[/font]

[HereSince1628]

6. I might be wrong, but I think there -is- supposed to be some room for recovery/remission

I think the way that is hidden is much of the problem.

I'm NOT a lawyer, and someone who has training in reading the law could/should make a comment on this, but it seems to me that the operative section was written as a long compound sentence. For several reasons that sentence is vulnerable to being misread.

American media writes in short sentences, so Americans, I suppose including border guards, tend to read writing in little snippets

Looking toward the end of the sentence set off in (II) there -is- language that talks about 'if' there is a likelihood of recurrence.

Unfortunately, it seems that turning the sentence into part of the US Code required the insertion of various identifiers to facilitate legal reference to special conditions or circumstance within each clause. the law. The sentence is also broken into sub-parts as it is laid out for printing...again seemingly to facilitate referencing different aspects of the law.

IMO, that complicates reading and understanding the sentence as it was originally written...which to me seems to include a conditioning statement which refers to both (I) and (II) rather than just (II). But again, I'm not a lawyer and I'm not familiar with editing rules or rules for interpretation of laws and regulations.

The spirit of the law would appear to be to require denial of entrance to persons who are in a state of mind where they would be dangerous to property, themselves, or others. I think it's unlikely that a Border Guard can technically achieve a psychological evaluation, but I can see how empowering a border officer to do so might be in the interest of the US and its residents.

The law certainly needs to be clarified for the border guards so that a past history of a long resolved mental crisis isn't a barrier to traveling through the US. I'm not sure if that is best done by an administrative ruling stating a specific interpretation or if it would be done by amending the law. In any case something should change.

[Locut0s]

7. The question I'd like answered here is...

How the FUCK was she flagged in the first place? HereSince1628 has done great job looking into why she was denied after learning of her past mental health issues. And there it indeed seems like it's down to crappy interpretation of a somewhat vaguely written law.

What scares the shit out of me though is how she was black listed to begin with? I guess the confidentiality of medical records means shit nowadays. If it's the fact that she wrote a book that would entail someone, of an algorithm, skimming huge volumes of published material "looking for potential 'crazies' to ban". That is just about as scary IMO.

[HereSince1628]

8. She says it turned on a hospital record...which might imply US access or possession of Canadian

records that include hospitalization records and it might not. On it's face that should obviously raise some eyebrows.

But is the story as she has stated it? Maybe and maybe not. Critical reading means leaving room for consideration and possibilities of things that weren't included in the story. And the questions raised by critical thinking must be answered if something near the truth is to be achieved.

Why would a border guard care about illness of a person seeking entry?
For reasons of public health, communicable disease in persons seeking entry has long been an issue at points of entry for many countries.

Yet, mental illness clearly isn't communicable. Suicidal ideation, being nothing more than thoughts, has no physical symptoms.
So how did the issue of a past suicide get raised at all?

She claims it was a hospitalization record. Ok. How did the border guard come to be looking for such a record? Is that routine or is it a question invoked by something in evidence?

Ms. Richardson uses a wheel-chair as a consequence of her failed suicide. Perhaps she offered that information in response to a general question about her wheel-chair use. An 'I attempted suicide' response may have set in motion the unhappy, flawed, chain of events that led to her exclusion. Of course that's speculation. If I was a critically minded reported I might try to nail down an answer to that question from Ms. Richardson or the border police (although it's quite likely the border security wouldn't provide a specific answer).

Why would she say something like that? Because it's an important part of her persona. She wrote a book and gives talks about suicide.

Yet, Ms Richardson says it was a hospital record that stopped her. Taking that at face value there is the question of how the existence of that record was confirmed within the relatively short period of time she was delayed. Was a phone inquiry made to a Canadian agency, that was researched, and nothing more than a confirmation of a hospital record about the suicide transmitted, or was the data researched in a US database accessed by the border agent?

We don't know and we aren't likely to get an answer from the US government, because of its policy of not discussing security methods.

If all this ended with Ms. Richardson, as a critical reporter I might say this is a one-off weirdness. Is this a one-off or is it a pattern?

According to a link in the original article, Ms Richardson isn't the only Canadian stopped for a past suicide attempt during a secondary screening for US entry in Toronto (http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/canadians-with-mental-illnesses-denied-u-s-entry-1.1034903). It's completely unclear why these other Canadian citizens were selected for secondary screening, and it is unclear how the information about their past suicidal concern came to be an issue.

There is an ugly looking pattern of US border agent activity and it isn't understood by the public on either side of our common border.

From an American point of view that is sensitive to the rights of the mentally ill, I find this pattern of exclusion offensive. Based on my reading of the law it seems likely to be based on a twisted interpretation of law by a someone in a supervisory position of US border agents in Toronto.

America has an abundance of fearful persons in our police and security services who may be motivated to push their implementation of laws past the intended bounds.

We don't exclude persons who have had communicable diseases but are recovered from them. We shouldn't exclude persons who have had mental illness and are recovered from them. The law states fairly clearly that the concern is of something likely to happen, and the only concern the US really has is within a time-frame relevant to a visitor's sojourn within the US.

I hope it's limited to one supervisor in Toronto, but I don't know if it is. This could go way up the ladder to one of the persons hired under the terribly paranoid Dick Cheney when US HSD was organized after the World Trade Center attacks.

I find very troubling the prospect of US Homeland Security maintaining a database of the health records of citizens of foreign countries --whatever US HSD is willing to do to Canadians, it's likely willing to do on US citizens.

It's worrisome to me that I recently received a pamphlet from the US Veterans Affairs administration, outlining in obviously overly simplistic terms, that without my authorization the VA hospitals will share information from my medical records with police and security agencies.

But I don't know that in these other Canadian cases that such a US database was used. The database may belong to some Canadian institution which either has granted access to, or provides real time answers to queries from, US Homeland Security.

Of course, the Canadian perspective on that is somewhat different and should be troubling to Canadians. Canadians have some reasonable and serious questions to ask of their government. Why, how, and under what circumstance do foreign border agents working in Toronto get information from the medical records of Canadian citizens? What does Canadian sovereignty mean to a Canadian citizen's privacy?