Lambda Legal Speaks Out Against Proposed Regulations That Place Unfair Restrictions on HIV Positive Visitors to the U.S.

(New York, December 10, 2007) — Lambda Legal is opposing regulations proposed by the Department of Homeland Security on Issuance of a Visa and Authorization for Temporary Admission into the United States for Certain Nonimmigrant Aliens Infected with HIV. The suggested regulations continue the stigmatizing discrimination against persons living with HIV, create greater barriers to their entry into the United States and significantly curtail their legal rights once here.

"There have been extraordinary advances in the understanding and treatment of HIV/AIDS and how it's transmitted," said Bebe Anderson, HIV Project Director. "There is no medical justification to continue to treat people living with HIV as creating, by their very presence, a danger to public health."

Currently, there is a statutory bar on the admission of individuals living with HIV, but the President last year called for a categorical waiver that would streamline the process to obtain a waiver of the bar for short-term visitors. The proposed regulations, however, do not create a categorical waiver enabling more people living with HIV to enter the U.S on short-term visas. Instead, the Department of Homeland Security would require an individualized, detailed, case-by-case assessment of the applicant's medical condition, treatment regimen, HIV counseling and financial assets. And to be eligible for the slightly streamlined visa processing proposed by the draft regulations, waiver applicants would be forced to give up any right to change, extend or adjust their status while in the United States. As a result, certain individuals, in particular those qualifying for political asylum, might be placed in immigration limbo and forever prevented from becoming United States citizens.

Lambda Legal urges that DHS not adopt the proposed regulations and instead significantly revise them so they would allow more people living with HIV to visit the United States and would not require those visitors to give up safeguards and rights available to other visitors.

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Contact: Tika Milan 212.809.8585 ext. 223; E: tmilan@lambdalegal.org

Lambda Legal is a national organization committed to achieving full recognition of the civil rights of lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, transgender people and those with HIV through impact litigation, education and public policy work