U.S. Blocks Mentally Ill Canadians From Crossing Border

No one's provided an explanation why people with histories of non-violent mental illness are being kept out of the U.S.

Apparently, mental health issues are now a reason for Canadians to be barred from entering the United States, as more than a dozen people with mental illnesses have been denied entry in the past year. The Psychiatric Patient Advocate Office has heard from a handful of clients over the past 12 months saying that they've been refused entry because of previous mental health issues, including one woman who was turned away at Pearson International Airport because of a police report stemming from a suicide attempt four years ago. The PPAO thinks it could stem from records stored with the Canadian Police Information Centre, a database of police records that American authorities can access when screening visitors to the country. Even when police respond to non-violent incidents linked to someone's mental health problems, a record of it ends up in the database. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the RCMP, and the two country's border agencies have yet to explain why non-violent mental illness patients have been denied entry.