An American citizen has been accused of having engaged in espionage for Russia and is facing removal from Canada — and separation from her Canadian husband.

Elena Crenna is deemed inadmissible to Canada for security reasons for her contacts with Russia’s intelligence and security agency, the FSB, while working as a translator for a Canadian housing development project 20 years ago.

While the Immigration Department has concluded she was “a known conduit of harmless information about that project and its Canadian personnel,” the Canada Border Services Agency insists that she is inadmissible and must appear before an admissibility hearing on Thursday.

“It is really difficult to see why she is being put through all of this or how she could be considered a risk to Canada’s security either now or then. She was accepted as an American citizen after thorough security vetting. She is a registered nurse in California and her son served in the U.S. military,” said her lawyer Seamus Murphy.

“The housing project she allegedly spied on never had any official secrets. She hasn’t had any contact with the FSB for about 20 years. The only contact she did have with the FSB was expressly authorized by the target of the alleged espionage.”

Crenna was hired by her now Canadian husband, David Crenna — a long-time policy adviser to federal and provincial cabinet ministers — as an interpreter and local liaison manager for the joint development project by the World Bank and the Canadian government in Tver, northwest of Moscow, between 1994 and 1996.

She moved to the United States in 1998 and was granted American citizenship in 2004 after an interview with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. She reconnected with David Crenna in 2008 and they got married four years later. In 2013, she moved to Ottawa where they filed a spousal sponsorship for her to become a permanent resident here.

According to the border agency’s inadmissibility report, Crenna told Canadian officials that she only spoke with the Russian intelligence agency at the instruction of the project management, which also informed the Canadian Security Intelligence Service about the contact.

She told the Canadian border agency that she met with the FSB five to seven times between 1994 and 1998 sharing information about the housing project and the Canadian personnel involved.

“Therefore, Ms Crenna gathered surreptitiously information during many occasions and provided an FSB agent with oral reports,” the Canadian border agency said in its inadmissibility decision dated last November.

The decision said the agency “has reasonable grounds to believe that Ms Crenna engaged, between 1994 and 1998, in an act of espionage that’s contrary to Canada’s interests.”

However, the border agency’s conclusion contradicted an analysis by a senior immigration officer in a memorandum attached to Crenna’s file.

“In the absence of a surreptitious effort to obtain information on the part of the applicant . . . when the applicant was attached to a Canadian project, she was not engaged in ‘espionage’ as defined in the Oxford English and Merriam-Webster dictionaries,” the officer wrote in the letter dated February 22, 2016.

“The applicant was granted citizenship in the United States of America is also evidence that the applicant had no formal link to the KGB/FSB and did not engage in activities that could be construed as ‘espionage’ by the American security agencies.”

The Immigration Department declined to comment on the case since it is still before a tribunal. A spokesperson for the border agency said its officers have the authority to initiate an admissibility proceeding when they have grounds to believe the person is inadmissible to the country.

David Crenna said the inadmissibility proceeding against his wife has put a strain on their relationship — and their retirement savings.

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“Elena was fully prepared to adjust to her new life in Canada. What she couldn’t foresee is that the process of approval would be so gruelling, convoluted and seemingly endless,” he said.

Elena Crenna could face removal and be banned from re-entering Canada if the immigration division tribunal upholds the border agency’s inadmissibility findings.

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