Immigration Law

CONGRESS SET TO REPEAL BAN ON IMMIGRATION OF HIV+ APPLICANTS

By Greg Siskind

Congress is set to include the HIV Non-Discrimination in Travel and Immigration Act in the President's PEPFAR emergency plan for AIDS relief. The measure, sponsored by Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) in the Senate and Representative Barbara Lee (D-CA) would repeal the ban on immigration for HIV+ individuals.

The measure has drawn the praise of many groups:

Physicians for Human Rights and the Human Rights Campaign both hailed the attachment of the Kerry-Smith bill to PEPFAR.

""We welcome language in the PEPFAR Reauthorization bill that would lift the ban on travel to the US for people with HIV," said John Bradshaw of the Cambridge, Massachusetts-based Physicians for Human Rights.

"More than 700 doctors, nurses, and public health experts recently wrote the government asking them to overturn this ban.  It clearly violates the human rights of people with HIV and has stigmatized them for 15 years. It's time for the U.S. to treat visitors living with HIV with dignity, as other countries do. There have never been public health grounds for denying people living with AIDS admission to the United States, and there are none now," said Bradshaw, from Washington.

"The time is long overdue to repeal this unjust and sweeping policy that deems HIV positive individuals inadmissible to the United States,? said HRC President Joe Solmonese.  "This law emerged out of fear and stigma, and there remains no public health rationale for treating HIV more harshly than other communicable diseases.  We salute the leadership of Senators Kerry and Smith and urge Congress to end this draconian policy."

Only 13 countries are left that have such a ban.

Hat tip to reader F. for sending this link.

Full post as published by Greg Siskind's Blog on March 10, 2008 (boomark / email).