OUR LATEST ISSUE
New policy is expected to come into effect on January 4
Barack Obama
Obama lifts HIV travel and immigration ban
President Obama has announced that the federal government will end its ban on travel and immigration to the US by people who are HIV positive, saying that the 22-year-old policy was "a decision rooted in fear rather than fact".
"We are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people with HIV from entering our own country," he said on Friday. "If we want to be the global leader in HIV, we need to act like it."
The ban, preventing non-US citizens from entrance or immigration to the country unless they had been granted a waiver by the Department of Homeland Security, was first implemented in 1987 and codified into law by Congress in 1993.
The policy reversal was passed by Congress last summer under the leadership of Senator John Kerry, Congresswoman Barbara Lee and then-senator Gordon Smith. President Bush signed it into law but the administration was unable to complete the change before his term ended.
Obama said the change would come into effect "just after the new year", which is believed to mean January 4 as Friday January 1 is a federal holiday.
"At long last, people living with HIV will no longer be pointlessly barred from this country," said Rachel B Tiven, executive director of LGBT lobby group Immigration Equality. "Every day, Immigration Equality hears from individuals and families who have been separated because of the ban, with no benefit to the public health. Now those people can be reunited."
