Senate Lifts HIV Immigration Ban

Thursday July 17, 2008

The Senate has voted to repeal a 20-year policy banning HIV-positive immigrants and nonimmigrants from entering the U.S. Only twelve countries worldwide have an anti-HIV/AIDS policy: Armenia, Colombia, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Solomon Islands, South Korea, Sudan, Yemen and until yesterday, the United States.

Under current immigration law, public health experts at the Health and Human Services Department (HHS) make the decision whether or not a person with a communicable disease is eligible for admission. This applies to any disease except HIV/AIDS, which is the only medical condition that is a ground of inadmissibility. Special waivers are available but they can be difficult to obtain.

HIV-positive individuals are not eligible to become permanent residents. This can be a tragic blow to HIV-positive immigrants seeking to reunite with family in the United States. It also changes the immigration path of legal immigrants who become infected with HIV after arriving in the U.S.

Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Gordon Smith (R-OR) led the effort to include the HIV immigration and travel ban as a provision to the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) bill. The Senate passed the bill with an 80-16 vote, committing $48 billion from the United States over the next five years to help Africa and other foreign countries combat HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

Assuming all goes well and the PEPFAR bill with provision is signed into law, the anti-HIV language will be removed from the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the HHS will be responsible for determining whether a person's HIV status is of public heath significance.

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