Dear Editor,
Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, people with HIV have asked for one simple thing: to be treated like everyone else, and legislators have generally understood the importance of ensuring that those with HIV receive the same equitable treatment as everyone else. That's the American way. But for 20 years, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Service ( USCIS ) has been forced to act in a most un-American way; federal law bans any HIV-positive visitor or immigrant from legally entering our country. No other Western nation imposes such a ban. Only 13 countries in the world do so, most of which are human-rights violators such as China, Libya and Russia.
In 1987, when the ban first became law, misunderstandings about HIV proliferated, and policy was influenced by fear and prejudice. Even though the Department of Health and Human Services ( DHHS ) recommended that this ban be lifted back in the early 1990s, Congress disregarded DHHS's informed opinion and thus it remains today.
Nearly all public health agencies and experts agree that the HIV ban should be lifted. Government studies of Western countries without an HIV ban show that changing the law would pose no public health threat or financial burden to our citizens. Furthermore, for a nation that has assumed a global leadership role in the fight against AIDS, it's the only appropriate policy to adopt. As the richest nation in the world, we pledge $30 billion through the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief ( PEPFAR ) to help our international brothers and sisters with HIV, yet our own law tells those individuals we don't want them as our neighbors, coworkers or friends.
The current Senate version of the PEPFAR reauthorization bill, now being debated in Congress, includes an amendment that will lift the HIV ban. This amendment should become law.
Lifting the ban will not increase our taxes. It will not give HIV-positive immigrants any advantage over those who do not have HIV; they still have to meet all the requirements that every other prospective immigrant must meet. The law will simply treat people with HIV like everyone else, so that America will not lose the talents, resources and esteem of good people who just happen to have HIV.
Sincerely,
Ann Hilton Fisher
Executive Director
AIDS Legal Council of Chicago