Son says Canadian died in U.S. after declining hospital care due to deportation fear

The son of a Canadian woman who died after a fall at her home in Point Roberts, Wash., earlier this month says she refused to seek treatment as she feared she would be detained by U.S. authorities or prevented from returning to the country.

Dylan Adamson says his 61-year-old mother was afraid to leave the United States because immigration authorities had recently commenced deportation proceedings, alleging she illicitly voted in a state election in 2018.

Health care is limited in Point Roberts, which is cut off from the rest of the United States and accessible by land only by travelling through British Columbia, and Adamson says his mother, Paige Adamson, refused to be taken to a hospital because she feared being unable to return home due to the deportation action.

Adamson says he only learned of his mother’s fall after speaking with a firefighter who attended the scene of her death last Sunday, within a week of the accident.

The fall came about a month after Paige Adamson, a U.S. permanent resident, was heading home from a birthday dinner in nearby Tsawwassen, B.C., when American border officials held her for hours and questioned her about voting in the country.

Dylan Adamson says his mother did not recall registering to vote or casting a ballot, and the ensuing deportation proceedings sent her into a “panic.”

Adamson, who lives in B.C., says he’s been told paramedics who saw his mother before her death said to her that she needed to go to a hospital, but she signed a form declining further care because she was afraid of crossing the border.

“I’m just at a loss. Just because of a vote, my mom is dead. Just because of a stupid technicality, my mom is dead.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2026.