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Disabled Woman Denied Entrance To US Due To Private Medical Records
Jah-Wren Ryel writes "In 2012, Canadian Ellen Richardson was hospitalized for clinical depression. This past Monday she tried to board a plane to New York for a $6,000 Caribbean cruise. DHS denied her entry, citing supposedly private medical records listing her hospitalization. From the story: '“I was turned away, I was told, because I had a hospitalization in the summer of 2012 for clinical depression,’’ said Richardson, who is a paraplegic and set up her cruise in collaboration with a March of Dimes group of about 12 others.'"
..literally hundreds of others crossed the border illegally. USA USA USA!
We don't want no evil Canadian paraplegic terrorist to assault our defenseless citizens with kind words.
Give me your tired^whealthy, your poor^wrich/Your huddled masses^wvisa-workers yearning to breathe free^w"managed"
Only a few more words to go people; you can do it!
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Does the D in DHS stand for douchebag?
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
How did they get her Canadian medical records? Canada's hospitals are run by government... did the government really hand over all of Canadians' private medical records to a foreign country?
What scum.
It's not exactly a surprise at this point that the only thing keeping the DHS from telling you where you left your keys this morning is the fact that they are unhelpful assholes, not the fact that they don't know; but why would the DHS consider a depressed Canadian (whose itinerary, and thus the fact that she'd be on a boat for most of her time here, were presumably also known to them) an entry problem? Tourists, while occasionally irksome, are basically pure profit, and it's not like she's going to be sponging off our kick-ass public health system, or stealing our jobs from her wheelchair.
Is there some catch-all 'medical refusal' category left over from the good old days of TB screenings at Ellis Island that somebody felt like powertripping on? What sort of insane logic is at work here?
The US can deny anyone entry into their country for any reason or no reason.
While I think we all agree that flying like many activities is something of a privilege. But at the same time, who really thinks it's a good idea to let some preening, unaccountable bureaucrat decide whether or not you should be granted that privilege with no justification needed?
While the commenter goes on to note that US Customs and Border Protection should not have had access to that medical information (with the poster claiming that is the only "deeper issue" at stake), it's interesting how many issues this one incident bring up.
In addition, we have regulations that can block someone from flying on dubious medical grounds. And that US Customs and Border Protection has the authority to block people from merely flying through the US on their way to other foreign locations.
It's like someone knocked a whole crate of worms off the locking dock.
Due to her medical condition being advertised all over the internet: https://www.tatepublishing.com/bookstore/book.php?w=978-1-60604-911-2
That is absolutely amazing. (Not in any good way) TSA/ICE people literally have access to this stuff. It amazes me in an utterly horrifying way. That it's more international data sharing at this level should be cause for all manner of scrutiny and corrective action.
I'm sure Canadians and others are just about done with the US and what the government is up to.
USA, a country full of control freaks and paranoia.
If the book was published in 2009 and the exact event stated by DHS for denying entry occurred in 2012, how did the 2012 event get known by the DHS from a 2009 book?
@Whee
This is basically the opposite of good advice, and none of it conforms to any experience I've ever had, or that anyone I know has had. I have a psychiatric diagnosis or two, and I've gotten treatment, and you know what? It's made my life a heck of a lot better actually getting some help. I've never had a doctor try to somehow disregard physical illnesses based on this, either.
The thing with "treatments" in scare quotes is a pretty strong indication that you're not merely unaware of the state of the art in the field, but actively avoiding any risk of being contaminated by actual information about it. And I guess if you wanna be that way on your own dime, that's your business, but when you start telling other people they should avoid basic health care services because you're afraid of them, that's sorta harmful to other people.
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Disabled Woman Denied Entrance To US Due To Private Medical Records
While it wouldn't necessarily be a surprise to find out that her physical disability (paraplegia) might have had some affect on her mental wellbeing over the years, is it not just a little bit disingenuous to make it the first word of the headline, implying that it was her physical disability rather than her mental illness that caused the issue at the border?
You wouldn't write the headline "Black man arrested for insider trading" would you?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
There are plenty of cruises that will leave from Britain, mostly Southampton. 1. You avoid idiocies like the one in the article. 2. There are no Americans on board!!!! Or only those that want to avoid Americans.
Let's be honest, they're a pain in the arse and the last people you would want near you on a relaxing holiday.
That creature was no bull dyke.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan of bull dykes, at all. I've no use for them, and they have no use for me. But, a bull dyke is a woman, after all, and human.
That creature you refer to, who was running DHS, is a full fledged fascist pig, with an agenda of her own. She has no love for the United States, or any segment of the country's demographics.
As little as might like bull dykes, I would have preferred that there actually WAS a militant lesbian bull running DHS.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
The point is that the NSA knows about everyones personal medical records. And they abuse that information.
Our southern border remains as porous as sandstone. No one knows, or cares, how many people are infiltrating on the southern border. No one cares what their mental state might be, no one gives the slightest thought to their loyalties, or their purposes for crossing the border.
But, we must prevent some Canadian from entering the United States who just might possibly could do harm to herself!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
This reminds me of a former co-worker of mine at a university in Britain. My co-worker was Indian, held an MSc and a Research Fellow position at said university, while also being halfway through a PhD at the same university.
He was scheduled to attend a conference in the US together with our line manager, but had to cancel as the US blankly refused him entrance on the grounds that the risk of him becoming an illegal immigrant was too high. Letters from the university did not help.
Now, you may well be proud of your country, but is it really realistic to expect someone to be so desperate to live in the US that they will drop a relevant, career-progressing and decently paid job in another Western country to work in the kitchen of a golf club as an illegal immigrant?
He now ironically works in the UK for a large, very high-tech US company.
The state of the art in the field is medication. The drugs have changed over time, but drugs have been the first line of treatment for at least 40 years now. I have both experienced myself, and witnessed in others the indescribable suffering and agony that can occur due to drug side-effects, and those that appear due to withdrawal of the drugs after long-term use. Psychiatry would have you believe, I suppose, that the central nervous system is endlessly plastic, and can rapidly adapt and respond to medications being added and removed as one pleases. For the majority, perhaps this is true - but there is a sizable minority who find their mental health deteriorate the longer they are on the medications, and then discover (to their horror) that they cannot discontinue the drug without terrifying mental and physical symptoms, far worse than the original illness. If it should happen to you, psychiatry absolutely _will not_ have your back, or really anything to offer you, as even the drug manufacturers themselves do not know how the medications affect the brain long term.
One might argue that any treatment has risks, but after experiencing what I've experienced, I think people should understand what kind of risk they're really taking. For my part, I do not consider this kind of medication Russian roulette to be a "basic health care service."
I could be described as liberal, I think the over reaction to children playing with toy guns, drawing guns etc is absolutely ridiculous. What I find more ridiculous, is peoples inability to understand liberal and conservative are not two molds where everyone thinks exactly the same and has the same reaction and level of intelligence. Stop turning politics into a tribal war thinking there are two distinct sides, and one is out to get you.
The DHS quite obviously have access to sweeping surveillance information on anyone who wants to enter the US. This was obvious before the Snowden/NSA leak. A couple of years before that leak there was a British man who made national news here for being denied entry to the US (and being interrogated for hours) because of a tweet he made not long before he boarded the aircraft (the tweet was of the nature "we're gonna go out and destroy the town tonight" which in British slang means we're going to get drunk and party, but the DHS took it literally as if he were planning to bomb Seattle). To link someone's Twitter username with an actual living person in such a short period of time and have it ready on a border agent's computer when the unfortunate person arrives means they must have had pretty wide and detailed surveillance already capable of making all the links necessary to link a living person with a pseudanonymous Twitter username.
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The DHS would never have let those religious nutjobs in.
Where I live (British Columbia), our provincial government has contracted a US multi-national to maintain our public health records. This caused considerable controversy at the time, including an unsuccessful court challenge.
It should come as no surprise to any Canadian that the US has access to their health records when we're paying a US company to maintain them.
If I look at liberal and conservative politicians, it seems like there is only one mold. Seriously, why do Americans still vote at all?
This sounds like good advice, but really isn't
If you apply for a visa to the US for a visit that doesn't require one, you are acting suspiciously! The request will likely be denied for the simple fact that it is suspicious, and here's the kicker: if you have been denied a visa once, it becomes very difficult to enter the US. You can never make use of the visa waiver program again, and having previously been denied a visa may be grounds for rejection the next time you apply for a visa.
A better advice: just do exactly what is required.
From TFA:
'U.S. Customs and Border Protection media spokeswoman Jenny Burke said that due to privacy laws, “the department is prohibited from discussing specific cases.’’'
If only they were always so scrupulous in observing privacy laws.
This is like the fourth time in this article I have seen this. She wrote a book that was published something like 4 years ago, but yet the DHS knew about something that happened last year. Holy shit do you people pay any attention to what is going on? Or did you skim the summaray and then off to googling in the hopes you would earn some modderations if you brought back a tasty treat.
You people sometimes, no fucking common sense.