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Featured Guests

Eric Berndt
Supervising Attorney, National Asylum Partnership on Sexual Minorities, National Immigrant Justice Center
U.S. HIV immigration ban, asylum and recognition of same-sex couples for immigration, hate crimes
National Immigrant Justice Center
Mara Kiesling
Founding Executive Director, National Center for Transgender Rights
violence against transgender individuals around the world, access to medical care for transgender individuals, violence and immigration issues for transgender individuals
National Center for Transgender Rights
Mark Bromley
Council Chair, Council for Global Equality
LGBT foreign policy, international LGBT human rights issues, sexual violence
Council for Global Equality
Pamela Denzer
Attorney, Immigration Equality
Immigration rights for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and HIV-positive community
Immigration Equality
Scott Long
Director, LGBT Rights Project
Human rights violations based on sexual orientation, gender identity and HIV Status, sexual rights issues, LGBT Foreign Policy, LGBT parenting, use of sexuality to target women and feminist organizing, state-sponsored homophobia, people imprisoned under Roumania's repressive sodomy law
Human Rights Watch
Victoria Neilson
Legal Director, Immigration Equality
HIV immigration ban, LGBT asylum, LGBT and HIV immigration issues
Immigration Equality

Obama Lifts HIV/AIDS Bar of Entry Ban

Will more HIV/AIDS sufferers now seek treatment?
Issue Area:


Obama Lifts HIV/AIDS Bar of Entry Ban

“If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it.”

– President Barack Obama 10/30/2009

On Friday, October 30 President Obama lifted the ban on US entry to people who have HIV/AIDS. Obama said, “We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the AIDS pandemic – yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people (with) HIV from entering our own country.” By lifting the 22 year old ban Obama hopes to reduce the stigma of HIV/AIDS and to “…encourage people to get tested and get treatment. It’s a step that will keep families together and a step that will save lives.”

Obama announced the ban would be lifted when he signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009. This bill will amend the Public Health Service Act to revise and extend the program for providing life-saving care for those with HIV/AIDS. Ryan White was the teenager expelled from school in 1984 because he had AIDS.

Immigration critics are skeptical of lifting the ban because they fear that the US could potentially allow 4,275 HIV/AIDS infected people a year into the country which would cost approximately $94 million to treat during the first year alone. They also fear that HIV/AIDS will rapidly spread within the country.

Some other diseases that exclude immigrants and tourists from US entry are: active tuberculosis, infectious gonorrhea, syphilis, and infectious leprosy.

On October 28th, President Obama also demonstrated his commitment to protect the LGBT community by signing into law an expansion of existing hate-crime protections to outlaw attacks based on sexual orientation or gender, in addition to race, color, religion or national origin.

How will the US pay for immigrants that cannot afford HIV/AIDS treatment? How many people will come to the US specifically to get treatment for HIV? Will HIV become more prevalent in the US or will this new openness lead to faster eradication of HIV/AIDS?