A Canadian woman has been refused entry into the US by border officials due to her past history of clinical depression despite the medical records detailing her condition being confidential, it is claimed.
Ellen Richardson, who is paraplegic, was due to fly from Pearson airport in Toronto to New York in order to embark on a 10-day Caribbean cruise when a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent denied her entry, Canadian newspaper Toronto Star reported.
"I was turned away, I was told, because I had a hospitalization in the summer of 2012 for clinical depression,"’ Richardson told the newspaper.
The agent is understood to have cited Act 212 of the U.S. Immigration and Nationality Act, which denies aliens entry on health-related grounds including any "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".
But Richardson's lawyer told the newspaper that her medical records "are supposed to be strictly confidential" and said he had written to Ontario's health minister Deb Matthews to find out how the alleged breach could have occured.
