Senate Passes HIV Travel Ban Repeal
Not too long ago, the Senate passed S.2731, the reauthorization for the PEPFAR bill, which provides help in the fight against HIV and AIDS around the world (and according to the bill’s title, Tuberculosis and Malaria).
However, the bill will also remove the 15-year-old restrictions on travel and immigration for HIV/AIDS infected aliens. There’s been a large movement all across the blogosphere have fought to have these restrictions repealed, including a post by our own Editor-in-Chief, Michael van der Galien, to have readers write their Senators and urge them to vote for the repeal.
It may have ended up passing, anyway, but a little urging from constitutents never hurts. In any case, the provision survived a last minute attempt by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama) to remove it from the final bill.
Andrew Sullivan is completely ecstatic over the passage. He’s been in the U.S. for 25 years on a special green card, but has not been able to apply for citizenship because of the ban. Assuming the bill passes the President’s veto pen, he will be able to do so.
From my correspondence with Sen. Lieberman’s office, I’ve learned the House version of the bill doesn’t have the repeal, so the bill will definitely have to go back to the House if this is the case, and well as to clear up any other consistencies. Or maybe they just plan to re-vote on the Senate version? Guess we’ll find out later.
This is certainly a big win for HIV/AIDS infected people who would like to immigrate to this country, and I think a big win for America. With the repeal in place, some of the last vestiges of stigma related to HIV sufferers has been removed.
This website uses IntenseDebate comments, but they are not currently loaded because either your browser doesn't support JavaScript, or they didn't load fast enough.
Comments are closed.
PoliGazette Comments Policy
PoliGazette encourages comments from all viewpoints, especially those that disagree.
Comments submitted must, however, adhere to the following standards. Comments that violate
these standards may be edited or deleted without notice at the sole discretion of the editors.
Commenters who repeatedly or egregiously violate these standards or who attempt to argue
publicly with editors regarding the comments policy may be banned from commenting further.
(1) Comments should address the substantive content of the post. Comments that repeatedly
or blatantly misrepresent the content of the post or of others' comments are not welcome. Comments that
respond to something other than which the contributor or commenter may have said are irrelevant and should
not be posted.
(2) Comments should avoid vulgarity as well as racial, ethnic, religious, or sexual bigotry.
(3) Comments should not personally attack the character, personal integrity, or professional
reputation of any PoliGazette contributor or of other commenters.
(4) Comments should reflect the contributions of the commenters themselves and should not
include extensive cut-and-paste reproductions of others' words except insofar as necessary to supplement
the commenter's own arguments. Link spam, trackback spam, and propaganda spam will be instantly deleted.
(5) Public figures are considered open to all substantive criticism of their policies and statements.
Comments that present objectively false factual information about public figures (i.e. "Obama is a Muslim") or
that attack public figures by attacking their families are not welcome. Comments that merely repeat
slogans for or against a candidate without engaging in substantive comment are not welcome.
Questions or challenges to these policies or their application should be directed to the editors
by email only.
That’s just wrong. You don’t let diseased people capqable of infecting the general population at leasure come into a country. What about our rights? You sick bastards.
Yo, First poster, are you a lame troll or just incredibly selfish, haughty and rude? Who raised you and how?
First poster, from the fact more Americans are exporting the virus than foreigners coming into the country.
The TB part is a bit on the surprising side where TB can be transmitted via airborne droplets. With proper precautions it’s nothing to be worried about though. I haven’t read the bill yet but I’m sure they took that into account.
I had no idea Sullivan was HIV positive. I’m happy for him. HIV is a controllable disease and I’m glad the ban has been lifted. It’s very hard to get HIV if you’re being safe in your life, so it doesn’t make sense to prevent entry to people carrying a disease which is managable and hard to get. I’m a bit more worried about airborne diseases. In this case I think a more fine tuned policy is in order. People with active TB should be let in in the case that they are not carrying multiresistant TB and are under medication with an expectation that their medical progress can be followed.
Nomorehiv, it’s simple. Don’t take needle drugs. Don’t have sex without protection. Don’t share shaving razors with strangers. And hey presto! no more HIV. You’re much more likely to get cancer than HIV, so as far as legislation I suggest worrying about proper testing of food additives and industrial standards for waste disposal than about HIV positive immigrants.
Interested, the TB part of the bill is only the monetary help the government will provide to fight the disease. I’m not sure if TB patients are banned from visiting/immigrating now, but this bill doesn’t do anything to change that if it’s the case, only with HIV ones.
NoMoreHIV, that’s about the same attitude I saw in the Sessions amendment trying to keep the ban from being repealed. There’s no need for it. What Claudia says is true. HIV isn’t communicable, you actually have to do something to get it. No, I think the real reason behind those not wanting HIV infectees to immigrate is homophobia. That’s interesting, since they’re not the only people who get it!
"Nomorehiv, it’s simple. Don’t take needle drugs. Don’t have sex without protection. Don’t share shaving razors with strangers. And hey presto! no more HIV."
Oh, okay. I’ll give a thumbs up about that to women (or men) who get raped. Just don’t have sex without protection. Or to young kids who think nothing will happen to them. Or to miserable drug addicts who don’t even care whether they get HIV or not.
I meant heads up not thumbs up. My English is deteriorating indeed.