Mandi Morgan was hoping to witness history being made when she drove out of Montreal on Saturday, en route to the massive Women’s March on Washington.

“It was one of the most momentous protests in the United States and I wanted to be there to show my support and solidarity,” she said.

But those plans were dashed at the American border. Morgan and a friend she was travelling with were sent home. 

She said that after several questions from a border guard, the group was sent over to a secondary inspection area. There, she was asked several more questions, including her reason for going to the United States.

“I informed him I wanted to participate in the women’s march,” she said. “However, that day I did see on the news that there was an increase in violence in Washington, D.C. I informed him we were watching the news very closely and if it seemed unsafe to go, we would spend the weekend in Maryland.”

After a further wait, the border agent returned to tell her she would not be allowed into the country.

“He said, ‘Well, attending a protest is not a good enough reason to be allowed into the United States of America,’” she said.

Morgan said despite her reservations, she was photographed and fingerprinted before being sent back towards Montreal.

“The main reason, they said, is it’s their policy to take the prints of anybody who was denied at the border,” she said. “But they also did a thorough criminal record search and they came up with nothing. But they now have my fingerprints.”

Morgan said she came away from the experience at the border feeling like her privacy was violated.

“I felt it wasn’t their right to have my fingerprints because I did absolutely nothing wrong,” she said.

Further upsetting Morgan is that a bus of people behind her car was also ferrying people to the protest and was given permission to cross the border. She called the decision-making process behind who was allowed in and who was not “arbitrary.”

“I knew someone on that bus and it was full of people wanting to go down to the protest,” she said. “My process took about an hour and there were 100 people on that bus who would have taken 100 hours to process.”

The march ultimately did attract over 500,000 people from across the United States, joined by hundreds of Canadians who did manage to gain admission to the country. Marches were held in solidarity in hundreds of cities around the world, including one in Montreal that attracted thousands of people.

In a statement, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection Services spokesperson said they are unable to comment on specific cases.

The statement did list a number of reasons travelers might be denied entry into the country, including a lack of proper travel documents, intent to engage in prohibited activities and smuggling contraband materials.

“Entering the country to participate in a march is not a prohibited act,” they said.

Montreal immigration attorney Neil Drabkin said border guards have a lot of leeway in determining who they allow into the United States.

“In this particular case, I imagine that he or she found that the intended activities of the individual to be disruptive or possibly lead to violence and therefore exercised their discretion to deny entry,” he said.

Drabkin advised travelers who are denied entry to appeal to a supervisor if they believe the rejection is unwarranted. But, he added, the inauguration of President Donald Trump could lead to more denials in the coming years.

“There’s a new president in the Oval Office and he has said he wants to engage in extreme vetting,” he said. “That message has gone out to all borders and they now do have license to look more carefully at all individuals coming in, including people from Canada.”