Photos: Getty Images
Story by Joseph Alexiou
On Wednesday July 30th, HIV positive travelers worldwide celebrated
President Bush’s signing of an important piece of legislation, PEPFAR,
or the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. PEPFAR will
authorize $50 billion dollars over the next five years to various
domestic and international HIV and AIDS causes.
- This plan is especially relevant to travelers as it immediately repeals the United State’s discriminatory laws that barred HIV-positive visitors and immigrants from entering the country.
Previously, a known HIV-positive traveler could only enter the country
through a short-term travel waiver that was no easy feat to obtain, to put it lightly. In 2007, working in conjunction with the Human Rights Campaign, who led the
fight against the laws, Senators John Kerry and Gordon Smith as
well as Representative Barbara Lee introduced the HIV
Non-Discrimination in Travel and Immigration Act in their respective
houses of Congress. Their introductions of this act paved the way for
the repeal on July 30th.
On the day of the victory, HRC President Joe Solmonese praised the
legislators who aided in the cause of removing the ban which
“perform[ed] no public service, [was] unnecessary and ineffective.”
He
then made the formal request that US Secretary of Health and Human
Services Michael Leavitt to remove any “remaining regulatory barriers to HIV-positive visitors and immigrants.”
Click here for the HRC's coverage of this story.
