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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Port Sealant recs.

I would use 3M 4000UV for window, hatch, and portlight applications. Cheers, Dave.

Annapolis ICE Raids - July 2008

The Raids in Annapolis - Locked and Loaded
July 11, 2008 ? 2 Comments
According to an article published this week, inhumane tactics were used by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during last weeks raids in in Annapolis, Maryland. ICE agents raided worksites and private homes in an attempt to crack down on undocumented migrants in the area. And crack down they did.

According to many of the witnesses, doors and windows were kicked in, guns were brandished and residents were terrorized.

Take Eduardo Delgado. His front door was smashed down by police before he was taken into custody.

Ingrid Munoz, an American citizen married to a legal resident who worked for Annapolis Painting Services, said she woke up when agents pounded on her door. They wouldn?t let her or her husband get dressed, so she answered their questions wearing a tank top, her underwear and a towel.

The white wooden door frame on Jaclyn Munoz?s house off Forest Drive was splintered when agents broke into her home. She?s not even an illegal immigrant, she said.

Shannon Brown, an American citizen, said when her boyfriend opened their door, the house was surrounded by at least 20 agents. One pointed a gun at him, yelling in Spanish.

?He doesn?t even speak Spanish,? she said.

They searched the apartment while she got her two daughters, ages 4 and 7, out. She didn?t want them to see the raid.

All of this in order to apprehend hard-working people, not criminals. These are people with families they are working to support and care for. ?Handcuffs are not meant for working hands.?

In the opinion of one immigrant rights advocate, these tactics will hurt both ICE and local law enforcement in the end.

?Immigration is a civil offense, not a criminal offense,? he said. ?So when they act like this, what they?re doing is scaring people and breaking the trust that people have in law enforcement.?

as reported in the FIRM, likely from Capital Newspaper

Delay of I9 modification

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) announced Friday it has delayed until April 3, 2009, the implementation of an interim final rule entitled “Documents Acceptable for Employment Eligibility Verification”. The rule simplifies the Employment Eligibility Verification (Form I-9) process. Under the interim rule, employers will no longer be able to accept expired documents to verify employment authorization on the Form I-9. The interim final rule and an copy of the revised Form I-9 are available at www.regulations.gov.

E Verify - Court challenge

The federal government has agreed to delay the implementation of a requirement for federal contractors and subcontractors to use the E-Verify program until February 20, 2009. The rule was scheduled to take effect on January 15.

The system has complaints of being overly error prone.

Homeland secuity as reported by AP

WASHINGTON – If you're a criminal and you're not entitled to be in the United States, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano wants you out of the country. Napolitano wants what she calls "criminal aliens" off American streets. She is looking at existing immigration enforcement programs to see if taxpayers are getting the most bang for their buck.

Emilio Gutierrez Soto had been held in a Texas facility for seven months. He fled Mexico because he said he feared for his life after writing critically of the military. – as reported in LA Times

U.S. immigration authorities surprised press-freedom activists Thursday when they released a journalist -- fleeing alleged Mexican government persecution -- who had been held in a Texas detention center for seven months.
Emilio Gutierrez Soto walked out of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in El Paso late in the afternoon and expressed relief that he would soon be reunited with his 15-year-old son. "I still don't believe it. I need to wake up," Gutierrez, 46, said in a telephone interview.
The case had outraged Reporters Without Borders and other media advocacy groups. They said the journalist -- seeking asylum after purported death threats -- endured the extended detention without a hearing or adequate explanation from the U.S. government.