Thread: Ban on travelers with HIV to U.S. partly lifted

Ban on travelers with HIV to U.S. partly lifted

By Vimal Patel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 31, 2008
WASHINGTON -- President Bush signed a sweeping measure Wednesday that provides $48 billion to combat AIDS and other diseases globally and that also ends a long-standing U.S. ban on foreign visitors and immigrants who are HIV-positive.

The travel ban, approved in 1993, was seen by opponents as an anachronism from a period of hysteria surrounding gays. Its repeal, however, does not remove all U.S. travel impediments.


Activists will now turn their focus to the Department of Health and Human Services, which in 1987 placed HIV on its list of diseases barring entry into the U.S. That prohibition is separate from the congressionally imposed travel ban. But with the overarching ban by legislators repealed, federal health officials are no longer bound by law to keep HIV on the list.

"It's hard today to put yourself back there and imagine the kind of ignorance and misinformation that was prevalent in the early 1990s," said Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality, a New York-based group that advocated repealing the ban. "People believed the most fantastical, unrealistic things about gays. Congress has finally cleared the way to reverse that series of bad decisions 20 years ago."

It's unclear whether Health and Human Services plans to address the ban in the near future. An agency spokeswoman did not return a call for comment Wednesday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which is under Health and Human Services' jurisdiction and would make recommendations about the ban, also couldn't be reached.

But advocates of repeal said they were hopeful. In 1991, Health and Human Services proposed removing HIV from its list of diseases barring entry into the U.S. But the move drew outrage from religious conservatives, who delivered thousands of letters during a public comment period, derailing the effort, said Victoria Neilson, legal director for Immigration Equality.

A similar public comment period would be likely if the agency again proposed to remove HIV from the list.

"That's where the battle may be," Neilson said. Attitudes have changed, however, and the debate may be different today, she added. During Senate debate on the AIDS bill this month, conservatives steered clear of a fight over the provision to repeal the travel ban.

"People understand it's a virus, not a black plague or something. There's no reason for a disease that isn't airborne to be on the list," Neilson said.

Only 11 other countries, including Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Libya, Iraq and Colombia, maintain such a travel ban. Other diseases triggering the U.S. travel ban include leprosy, gonorrhea and tuberculosis.

Waivers are available, but activists consider them unfair and burdensome. A short-term waiver allows foreigners to visit temporarily if they can show that they don't have HIV symptoms, don't pose a threat to public health and can pay for their medical care, if necessary.

For some of those directly affected, the ban has led to years of frustration. Howard Wallen, 39, of New York met his future wife, Abeba, while traveling through Ethiopia's northern Tigray region in 2002. They married five months later. Soon thereafter they learned she was HIV-positive, setting off a struggle to get her into the U.S. that lasted until her death in Egypt last September.

U.S. officials would not allow her to enter the country unless she had health insurance, Wallen said. He found insurance companies that would cover his wife, but only if she was physically present in the U.S.

It was a "classic Catch 22" resulting from the travel ban and illustrates the challenges posed by the waivers, said Tiven, of Immigration Equality.

Today, Wallen's 4-year-old daughter, Hana La Paz Wallen, can fluently speak both English and Amharic, her mother's native language.

"America's a blessed country and a beautiful place . . . but what we had to go through with separation was unfair," Wallen said, fighting back tears. "I don't want other families to suffer the way we have. The bill is about taking a step in the direction of ensuring that dignity for other families."

vimal.patel@latimes.com



http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld ... 8256.story

Wake up Bush and our Government! Our country is in a depression and you are not only attempting to dump more illegals on us but illegals that are HIV positive for us to pay for via our tax dollars? New York spent over 3 billion in tax dollars to support illegals this year…I wonder how many more of our tax dollars will be poured out to accommodate illegal Aides patients! This is a really bad joke!

Either Washington is plain stupid and/or they have an agenda to destroy our precious America! And might I add they are doing a great job…destroying us!

The American people are not voting these laws into effect...let’s revisit the Boston tea party!

PS
Speaking of corruption, did anyone happen to see C-Span yesterday? Another big and sad joke! New York Democrat Charles Rangel was up on charges brought forward by Politico and the New York Times. The house reader must have gone up for five minutes detailing all of his violations. Rangel gave an impassioned speech about his innocence and soon after his speech his good buds in the Democratic Party “housedâ€

This is freaking disgusting. 48 billion for a preventable disease for more third worlders. Yet we can't even spare a billion to build a fence. We have a deficit that ranges in the trillions and yet this idiot in the WH doesn't see a problem and keeps spending like a drunken sailor. Check that, even a drunken sailor has more restraint. Oh it gets even better, now we are going to allow these diseased third worlders to spread their crap right here in America. Gee I wonder who gets to pay for their health care, housing and every other expense under the sun. Sure won't be good ole W himself, that is for sure. God forbid some of these people have the gall to intensionally try to infect the American people. Don't tell me they are all just coming here to work crap either. What are we going to do, take these peoples word for it that they aren't a walking biohazard?

This is going to be terrible. Your going to see HIV/AIDS spreading more rapidly and the cost to treat people are going to go through the roof. What does this clown care, he's out the door in 4 months anyway? May everyone who supported this hairbrained idea rot in hell.