HIV/AIDS Funding Bill & Discriminatory Immigration Ban Repeal Heads to Bush

After passing the Senate (80 to 16) last week, the House passed the PREPFAR bill 303 to 115.

Via Washington Blade:

The House of Representatives voted 303 to 115 late Thursday to approve a sweeping global AIDS relief bill that includes language repealing a 1993 U.S. immigration law that prohibits HIV-positive visitors from entering the country and bars most foreigners with HIV from obtaining legal immigrant status.

The action by the House came one week after the Senate approved an identical version of the AIDS relief measure by a vote of 80 to 16.

The bill, which renews the highly popular U.S. foreign aide program known as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) now goes to President Bush, who has said he plans to sign the legislation.

But the president and his Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Mike Leavitt, must approve one more administrative action to bring to an end the U.S. ban on HIV-positive visitors and immigrants, and the White House and Leavitt’s office have yet to say whether they will take that action.

In 1987, HHS used its existing legal authority to add HIV to a list of communicable diseases that disqualify foreign visitors from entering the country because persons afflicted with the diseases were considered a threat to the U.S. population. The 1987 HHS action also barred nearly all foreign nationals with HIV from applying for permanent U.S. resident status as immigrants.

Six years later, in 1993, when HHS considered reversing its 1987 action, Congress intervened by enacting the HHS administrative policy banning HIV-positive visitors and immigrants into law.

Now, with the president poised to sign the bill repealing the 1993 law, HHS must also repeal its internal, administrative policy before visitors with HIV would be allowed entry into the country and foreign nationals with HIV would be eligible for residency status as immigrants.

Filed Under: All Posts, GRW Politics
Tagged: federal, HIV/AIDS, immigration, repeal