I hadn’t seen anything about this story here, so I thought I’d put something up.
This is being reported by the Guardian. Normally, I would source a story through at least two news outlets, but I don’t know if this has been reported anywhere else.
An Australian woman who planned to house-sit in Canada during a holiday has said she was detained, fingerprinted, interrogated about her abortion history and quickly deported during a stopover in the US.
Madolline Gourley, a Brisbane resident, says she was treated like a criminal during her transit through Los Angeles on 30 June, where she was detained at the border due to suspicions about her intention to house- and cat-sit in exchange for accommodation while holidaying in Canada.
Gourley was held in a detention room, interrogated twice, patted down, fingerprinted and photographed.
At one point a US border official asked Gourley, who was wearing a loose-fitting dress, whether she was pregnant. The same question was repeated as she was moved between rooms. When she again told the US officials she was not pregnant, Gourley was asked whether she had had an abortion.
(My emphasis.)
The Guardian goes on to relate that Gourley was deported due to “breaching conditions of the visa waiver program,” which has strict rules about not receiving compensation for services rendered. Under the rules, it appears that house- and cat-sitting for free counts as compensation (an exchange for free room and possibly free board, I would assume). That said, Gourley was not meaning to stay in the United States but to travel on to a different country.
AND the question about whether she had had an abortion was not revelant in any case.
Asked about Gourley’s treatment, the CBP [US Customs and Border Protection] spokesperson said it took “allegations of unprofessional behaviour seriously”.
“CBP regrets any inconvenience or unpleasantness a passenger may have experienced during his/her CBP processing,” the spokesperson said. “We take allegations of unprofessional behavior seriously. CBP has standard procedures for handling allegations of misconduct. If we confirm employee misconduct, we will take firm and appropriate action to correct the situation.”
Typical CYA statement. Will we hear about whether any disciplinary action has been taken against the employee? I doubt it, as this story doesn’t even seem to have hit news outlets here in the States. In fact, I doubt any discipline will be handed out at all in this case. I think we may be seeing the start of a new normal.