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Loading ...Repeal Of Discriminatory HIV Travel Law Goes To President
07.25.2008 8:00am EDT
(Washington) The U.S. House has approved repeal of a law barring HIV-positive visitors and immigrants from entering the country. The legislation now goes to the President’s desk.
The measure was included in legislation reauthorizing PEPFAR, the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.The ban repeal measure was tacked onto the bill by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) and passed the Senate last week.
“Congressional backing for the repeal of this unjust and sweeping policy that deems HIV-positive individuals inadmissible to the United States is a huge step forward for equality,” said Human Rights Campaign President Joe Solmonese.
“The HIV travel and immigration ban performs no public health service, is unnecessary and ineffective. We thank our allies on the Hill who fought to end this injustice and now call on President George W. Bush to sign the PEPFAR bill into law and ask Secretary of Health and Human Services Leavitt to remove the remaining regulatory barriers to HIV-positive visitors and immigrants,” he said.
The travel and immigration ban prohibits HIV-positive foreign nationals from entering the U.S. unless they obtain a special waiver, which only allows for short-term travel. Current policy also prevents the vast majority of foreign nationals with HIV from obtaining legal permanent residency in the United States.
The ban originated in 1987 and was explicitly codified by Congress in 1993, despite efforts in the public health community to remove the ban when Congress reformed U.S. immigration law in the early 1990s.
While immigration law currently excludes foreigners with any “communicable disease of public health significance” from entering the U.S., only HIV is explicitly named in the statute. For all other illnesses, the Secretary of Health and Human Services retains the ability, with the medical expertise of his department, to determine which illnesses truly pose a risk to public health.
Gay and HIV/AIDS rights advocates have been fighting for repeal of the ban for more than a decade.
I hope Bush has the sense to refuse repeal of the ban on HIV visitors and imnmigrants, our country is already at a crisis level with HIV/AIDS and think repealing the ban is the height of not thinking about the burden it would put on US hospitals, health care and the burden it would put on the US economy as workers sicken and die in droves from this disease. Then so many people don’t know they have hIV/AIDS and may be infecting others, and then you have those who know that they have the disease and just go on having sex without thought or concern for the consequences.
If the ban is repealed, I am going to assume for my own health and well being that all foreigners have AIDS/HIV, just stick to Americans and I will ask that both my partner and I have our blood tested together for HIV/AIDS. No foreigner no matter how charming he is will be dated by me after the ban is lifted.
I encourage President Bush to sign the repeal of this ban into law. HIV and AIDS has unfortunately wormed its way into every nation and culture; the United States is no exception to this sad reality. HIV and AIDS infection can only be prevented through individuals making healthy choices about behaviour. Legislative remedies are merely political gimmicks and distractions; and the ban against HIV infected persons has neither prevented the spread of the virus within the US nor prevented short-term travellers or immigrants who may not know they are infected from engaging in risky behavior on US soil. The ban is discriminatory, illogical and worse ineffective, it should be repealed.
Morgan, your response is childish and silly. The best bet is to assume EVERYONE you plan to be intimate with is positive. Whether or not they are American is of no consequence. no one said anything about affording visitors anything other than a visit.
The idiot will probably add his 1000th signing statement telling federal agencies they don’t have to comply. This moron has done this more often that every other previous president combined.
I agree with David and Johnathan. This restriction should have been removed over a decade ago. My partner and I (of 12 years) have traveled all over the world, and while spending time in several European countries, we really got a flavor of just how prudish and backwards the US really is. Morgan, your view is that of the late 70’s and early 80’s when there was widespread panic because of the lack of information, medications, research, science, etc. Thirty years later, many people are living normal, healthy lives with the advances made in treatment and medications. By assuming everyone you are intimate with is HIV-positive and by taking responsibility to practice safe(r) sex, there is very little chance of infection. Fear and ignorance is our greatest enemy.
I whole-heartedly agree with Morgan on this issue. I am gay, and yet I completely agree with the implementation of such a measure to prevent the further spread of a mortal illness. It’s not as extreme as I would like…as callous as it might sound, I think a policy similar to that used with lepers in the past would be far more appropriate…if we quarantine and separate those suffering with HIV/AIDS from the general public, as well as bar anyone with the disease from entering the US, we would likely within a rid the country of it- certainly more quickly and with the ability to save more lives than if we just sit waiting for an effective vaccine or cure to be developed.
Great, to Jonathan and his friends,
Glad to know that you have personally devised both a proven and effective vaccine and a total cure for HIV/AIDS and that thanks to you HIV/AIDS can become rapidly a thing of the past and that you and your medical and scientific skills are in a position to benefit both the United States and the entire world as well and we can all have sex and intimate relations without fear of knowingly or unknowingly infecting men and/or women (depending on your gender preference (s))
One common denominator in this illness is the fact that various exchanges of body fluids such as blood, semen, etc. spread it through intimate bodily contact and through needles.
Let’s us all tbank Jonathan right now! Jonathan is our hero! He and his friends now possess the means to end this HIV/AIDS ordeal throughout the world as well as throughout the USA, they have developed effective meds and vaccines and cures that have put an end to long term and exorbitantly expensive HIV medical regimes that have side effects and an uncertainty as to how long they will protect, a huge price tag and an inability to prevent infecting others.
No longer do we have to fear the eoonomies of entire regions being uprooted by people dying from HIV/AIDS etc and thanks to Jonathan and his friends who have bailed us out, we can now live in HIV/AIDS free Utopia and Euphoria!!
I am amazed by the ignorace of some people. Both Morgan and Alex must be having unprotected sex and what the govenment to assure they won’t get infected.
Not everyone who has HIV/AIDS obtained it from unprotected sex. What about children who were born with it? Or from blood tranfusions? Should we forbid them for something they had no control over? Is that fair? Fact, People who have HIV/AIDS don’t automatically infect the people around them; it isn’t an air born virus (another fact that any person that knows ANYTHING about HIV would know). Not allowing people into the country because of that factor is the same as countries with anti-homosexuality laws banning the GLBT community because they think it is a disease as well. If people are so afraid of catching HIV/AIDS they already should be practicing safe sex and not touching other people’s blood, etc. Discrimination is not a health precaution and ignorance is not a valid point of view. It is saddening to see other gay people so close-minded and paranoid. Oh, and to Morgan and Alex, WELCOME TO 2008!
Morgan must be having unprotected sex, false assumptions there in Morgan’s case, Morgan speaking for himself here.
I haven’t had sex for over 2 years and there won’t be any outside of a committed relationship.
And it will be STRICTLY with condoms and testing. The testing is made even more urgent with the lack of a good vaccine and the lack of a cure for this incurable disease, given the expected deluge visitors and immigrants with HIV/AIDS once ban is lifted. HIV/AIDS is spread by unprotected sexual contact and needles as most of us know.
We have a significant HIV/AIDS problem already here in the USA AS SO MANY DON’T EVEN KNOW THEY HAVE THIS VIRUS and Jonathan and his friends think it’s OK to fling America’s gates wide open at a time when we don’t have a good vaccine or cure, given that quite a few don’t use protection and either unknowingly or knowingly spread the infaaction. Until we are able to protect our country’s economy and medical care systems from possible overloads of poor and/or not so rich people able to afford very pricy meds and treatment sick and getting maybe progresssively worse and then dying of this disease coming into our country when we have no cure and no vaccine to prevent and to combat this problem on an extremely large scale. The news media like the Washington Post, etc is telling us how this disease is becoming everymore prevalent and a greater and a greater problem.
I am just saying, if you want an uninfected boyfriend and you’re HIV-neg (I get tested every year), this possible incoming flood of visitors and immigrants coming here could reduce the remaining pool of uninfected people in the gay community.
I know that intimacy is good for several areas of one’s health, but one needs both protected sex and an uninfected life partner.
Sex is a powerful driving force for humanity to have children or to have a loving relationship and it is hard to stop people from having sex. That is why USA needs to be very careful.
And thus, I am very worried for the well-being of my country the USA on many levels by the coming increase in HIV/AIDS problem to our borders.
I know this flies in the face of political correctness etc from 365gay.com, from HRC, etc which has been pushing this.
I wish a magic could be waved to make these sad problems vanish, but USA needs to deal more and proactively with this problem to avoid being more overwhelmed by it than it is already.
I bet George Bush will not sign this bill, It is a stupid law anyway to ban HIV positivve people from entering the US, that law is just to piss off us gays (even the silly DADT military policy, which is another thing that should be repealed, but I do not see that happening anytime soon or the next 2 years) – Maybe in 2011.
Obviously some people prefer to remain in their closed little world and not listen to what others have said. I won’t even justify it with a direct response.
I will say 20 years ago when this ban was implemented, we didn’t know what we know now about transmission so the intial act of putting the ban in place doesn’t seem unreasonable. It should have been gone a long time ago though.
Morgan and his alias Jonathan are moronic trolls. Morgan/Jonathan wouldn’t dare say any of this nonsense IRL out loud to anybody with a brain.
This has been tacked on as an amendment to a bill being signed by the president. This is not the bill itself. He will sign it. He won’t veto it. Because the bill it was attached to is Bush’s own AIDS plan. We (thankfully) do not have line-item veto in this country! Therefore, its likely this ban on HIV+ visitors will be lifted, as the president will want to sign “his own bill”–as it were–into law! Here’s a little crash course on how our legislative process works: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEJL2Uuv-oQ
This is in response to Morgan’s comments; if you and your “partner” are in an open relationship, I think that sleeping with foreigners are the least of your problems; as you said, many Americans are infected and don’t know it