Thursday, November 29, 2007

This Is An Embarrassment For This Country

On November 6, the Department of Homeland Security proposed even more restrictive regulations for HIV+ travelers that wish to enter the United States.

Here's the gist of things:

"The US is one of only 13 countries that completely ban incoming travel across their borders by the HIV-positive. The others, according to a list established by the leading German AIDS service organization, Deutsche AIDS Hillfe, for the most part have undemocratic regimes. They are Iraq, China, Saudi Arabia, Libya, Sudan, Qatar, Brunei, Oman, Moldova, Russia, Armenia, and South Korea.

A waiver to the ban is required for HIV-positive travelers to or through the US. Even when a travelers US stay merely involves changing planes, a waiver is needed.

Last year on World AIDS Day, President George W. Bush pledged to issue streamlined new regulations with a categorical waiver that would make it easier for the HIV-positive to receive exemptions.

Unfortunately, despite using the terms streamlined and categorical, in reality these regulations are neither, said Victoria Neilson, legal director of Immigration Equality, which works on behalf of LGBT and HIV-positive asylum seekers and immigrants."

Read the whole article here.

It's a stupid policy that has nothing to do with Homeland Security or the public health. Tell me again how people with HIV don't experience discrimination anymore ....

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