A woman who was travelling via the US was left shocked after she was asked if she'd had an abortion by airport staff.
Madolline Gourley, from Brisbane, Australia, had stopped over in Los Angeles on June 30 while on her way to Canada for a holiday and to cat-sit.
However, while she was at the airport in the US, border officials asked her whether she had an abortion.
During the ordeal, she was patted down, fingerprinted, photographed, interrogated and asked if she was pregnant, the MailOnline reports.
"I don’t know if she had forgotten, or she wanted to work out if I was lying or something," she said.
"I said no, and she looked at me again and said, 'Have you recently had an abortion?'
"I don’t know the thought process behind that … I just thought, ‘'What’s the relevance of that to my situation?'"
She claims she was told by staff that she had been denied entry because it breached the conditions of the visa waiver programme.
This allows Australians and citizens of many other countries to travel to the US for short trips without getting a visa.
But she was sent back home on the next flight to Brisbane several hours later.
A spokesperson for US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) told the MailOnline that under the visa waiver programme, applications are banned from "any type of employment or getting compensation for services rendered".
However, Ms Gourley said she was shocked the service breached the visa programmes rules as she had previously travelled through the US with the same house and cat-sitting company.
She is now warning others to be aware of the possible consequences of pet or house sitting in North America and was was left surprised that she wasn't allowed through.
A CBP spokesperson said: "The department regrets any inconvenience or unpleasantness a passenger may have experienced during his/her CBP processing".
It added to the MailOnline: "We take allegations of unprofessional behaviour 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."
