Thread: TX - U.S. ban on HIV-positive travelers on the way out

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/5914776.html

How is this for accurate???
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President Bush appears poised to sign into law a multibillion-dollar AIDS relief bill that will lift a long-standing ban on HIV-positive foreign visitors and immigrants.

The U.S. Senate and House voted to amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to remove a statutory ban on foreign visitors and immigrants infected with HIV. Bush has said publicly that he plans to sign the $48 billion AIDS bill, also known as the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, this week.

John Nechman, a Houston immigration lawyer who specializes in immigration cases involving HIV-positive clients and has lobbied for changes in the law, called the ban's removal significant and symbolic.

"It's kind of like the homosexual conduct statute that existed forever," Nechman said. "It stigmatized gay and lesbian people so much by its very existence, even if it wasn't enforced. This law being in immigration code as the only disease that was listed as an excludable disease was sort of that same stigma. It came about at a time when people feared that HIV could be contracted by sneezing in a room or from mosquitoes."

The ban was enacted in 1987 and amounts to one of the world's most restrictive policies for dealing with HIV-infected immigrants and travelers. Under U.S. law, foreigners with HIV are not permitted to immigrate to the U.S. — or even visit temporarily — unless they qualify for narrowly defined waivers.


Misunderstanding, hysteria
The U.S. remains one of only 12 countries that bar the admission of those with HIV.

"In the early days, it was a bit easier to understand why the ban was in effect," said Dr. Mark Kline, head of retrovirology at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston and director of the school's AIDS International Training and Research Program. "There was a substantial amount of misunderstanding and hysteria associated with the evolving epidemic. Now, we're 20 years later, and we know definitely that the virus is not passed from person to person in any casual way."

The House voted on Thursday 303-115 to approve a bill that would reauthorize the AIDS relief package through 2013. The Senate version of the bill passed July 16 on an 80-16 vote.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, circulated a letter dated July 23 to his colleagues before the House voted on the bill, urging them to oppose lifting the ban. His spokeswoman, Kim Smith, could not be reached for comment on Tuesday.

"Allowing thousands of aliens with HIV/AIDS into the U.S. inevitably will threaten the health and lives of Americans," he wrote. "Why should we take this risk?"

Bush has said he will sign the bill, but that does not remove all of the barriers for HIV-positive tourists and would-be immigrants. It will then fall to Health and Human Services to decide whether HIV should remain on the list of diseases that bar entry to the U.S.

HHS has discretion to determine what constitutes "communicable diseases of public health significance" that would bar a noncitizen from entering the U.S. The agency now lists eight diseases — including HIV, tuberculosis, leprosy and gonorrhea — as basis for denying admission to the U.S. as a tourist or immigrant.

A spokeswoman at the HHS press office in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday referred comment to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. CDC spokeswoman Christine Pearson said she could not comment since the AIDS bill has not yet been signed and is "pending legislation."

Rachel B. Tiven, executive director of Immigration Equality, a New York organization that has lobbied for repeal of the ban, said it is difficult to predict HHS' actions.

"We're reluctant to read the tea leaves too aggressively, but we're certainly optimistic that HHS will act," she said, calling Congress' actions "an incredible advance."

In 2007, 938 immigration applicants were denied admission to the U.S. because they had a communicable disease, according to U.S. State Department statistics. However, of those applicants, 478 were later allowed entry after receiving waivers from the federal government. State Department officials say there's no breakdown of the applicants' diseases available.

The U.S. does not require HIV tests for all foreign visitors — only for people planning to immigrate permanently. However, short-term visitors are asked in the visa application process whether they have a communicable disease.


'A positive message'
Kelly McCann, CEO of AIDS Foundation Houston, said the ban hurt attendance at international AIDS conferences hosted in the U.S. in recent years and called its lifting overdue.

News of plans to lift the ban coincides with the International AIDS Conference, which starts Sunday in Mexico City.

"I think it's a very positive message to the world that the president is sending — that there is no reason to discriminate against people soley on the basis of their HIV status," Kline said.

We already have a thread on this - wouldn't it simply be better to post this as an update and contribution to the existing thread only 8-10 listings below?