Senate Finally Dismantles AIDS-Phobic Immigration Policy
Thursday July 17, 2008
Yesterday, the U.S. Senate voted to end our government's bizarre universal ban on HIV-positive immigrants.
The ban, passed during the age of AIDS hysteria (and renewed in 1993 under President Bill Clinton and a Democratic Congress), could be described as coldly rational if it were, in fact, rational. But even as an exercise in social Darwinism, it fails due to the noticeable absence of similar bans for equally serious, and more contagious, diseases. As Senator John Kerry (D-MA) points out:
Related: About.com: HIV and AIDS
The ban, passed during the age of AIDS hysteria (and renewed in 1993 under President Bill Clinton and a Democratic Congress), could be described as coldly rational if it were, in fact, rational. But even as an exercise in social Darwinism, it fails due to the noticeable absence of similar bans for equally serious, and more contagious, diseases. As Senator John Kerry (D-MA) points out:
"There’s no excuse for a law that stigmatizes a particular disease ... Someone seeking to come into the United States with Avian Flu or with Ebola virus actually gets judged on a better standard than someone HIV positive."The Senate's move is great news for many people, among them Andrew Sullivan, the former New Republic managing editor who has lived in the United States for 25 years but has not been allowed to apply for citizenship due to his HIV-positive status. He writes:
I'm not exaggerating when I say that it's one of the happiest days of my whole life. For two and a half decades, I have longed to be a citizen of the country I love and have made my home. I now can ...The repeal also has considerable symbolic importance. Much as the Immigration Act of 1965 implied through its abolition of racial quotas that our government values non-white immigrants and subsequently non-white citizens, the repeal of this ban implies that the U.S. government values HIV-positive immigrants and subsequently HIV-positive citizens. One more cruel, pointless, and discriminatory policy has been lifted, and we're a better country because of it.
I've lived with this awful sense of insecurity, of fear of leaving the country, of visiting my family, of the lingering sense that my virus rendered me potentially deportable, that any roots I put down might be dug up suddenly one day - for fifteen years. The lifting of this threat - the sense that I now have a home I know will be secure for me and my husband - is indescribable.
Related: About.com: HIV and AIDS
Comments
The end of that universal ban must be a sign of relief to many people.HIV/AIDS is not the worst disease on earth but its carries are seen as that due to stigmatisation.This is to bad for a human being.Though not an HIV carrier, i welcome the move taken by the US senate and urge other country(s) (if any)with similar ban to follow the example