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President To Lift Travel Ban On HIV Positive People
President Barack Obama today, October 30, announced that the long-standing ban on travel and immigration to the United States by HIV-positive individuals will end in just over 60 days. The lifting of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) ban will remove HIV from the list of "communicable diseases of public health significance." Previously, people living with HIV and AIDS were not allowed to enter the U.S. and non-citizens with HIV who are living in the U.S. could not stay.
The ban is widely understood to relate to gay people who might seek to immigrate to the United States. However, HIV infection rates are very high among heterosexuals in other parts of the world, especially southern Africa and southern Asia. The ban made it impossible for many of these people to move to the United States. Or, they could be deported if they became infected after they arrived in this country.
Rea Carey, Executive Director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, had this to say about the President’s announcement:
"The lifting of the HIV travel ban will remove a federally sanctioned stigma and sends a strong, clear message that the United States is working to end discrimination against people living with HIV and AIDS. Since HIV was the only disease singled out for exclusion by an act of Congress, the ban undermined U.S. efforts to fight the HIV pandemic. We applaud the approaching end of a discriminatory practice that stigmatized those living with HIV and AIDS. It is long past time to create a fair, humane and sensible HIV immigration policy."
A ban on travel and immigration to the U.S. by individuals with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, was first established by the Reagan-era U.S. Public Health Service and then given further support when Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) added HIV to the travel-exclusion list in a move that was ultimately passed unanimously by the Senate in 1987.
A 1990-1991 effort to overturn the regulatory ban failed in the face of outcry and lobbying from conservative groups and bureaucratic turf disputes. The ban was upheld in 1993 when Congress added it to U.S. immigration laws.
The Senate finally voted to overturn the ban as part of approving legislation re-authorizing funding for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR, in 2008, and President Bush signed it into law on July 30 of that year. Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and then-Sen. Gordon H. Smith (R-Ore.) led the process in the Senate. Until the passage of this law, the United States was one of only 7 nations that prohibited entry to HIV Positive people.
We are happy to see this additional sign that the United States is finally moving into the 21st century.
Boyce Hinman
California Communities United Institute.
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