An End to The HIV Travel Ban *Updated*
(Updated) Today, President Obama signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009, and with it, announced the end to the HIV Travel and Immigration ban. The Ryan White Act will fund HIV/AIDS prevention treatment for low-income individuals to the the tune of about $2.5 billion yearly through 2013.
The Advocate reported yesterday, that a source close to the administration said:
"My understanding was that this [an end to the HIV Travel and Immigration ban] would be announced the same day as the Ryan White Act was signed into law, the White House wanted to be out in front on this."
The group Immigration Equality has been lobbying against this policy since Congress made it an inadmissible disease in 1993. Over a year ago, President Bush signed the re-authorization of the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which included the elimination of the HIV ban from the Immigration and Nationality Act in July 2008, but the the Act never passed the Office of Budget and Management by the end of his term. Apparently, someone moved it up the Obama gay agenda list.
Comments [4]
congratulations
Thank you for reminding us how important the "little things" like "meetings, protests, strategy sessions, newspaper articles and conferences, . . . & public education" are to affecting change. And congratulations on a well-deserved victory that will help so many people.
"When you look for the bad in mankind expecting to find it, you surely will." ~ Pollyanna
NANCY LIEBERMAN CHALLENGES MR. OBAMA!!
For lack of a better thread to pop this piece of news into, I'll post it here since it has to do with THE PRES and his (SORELY LACKING) relationship to WOMEN.
and I mean REAL WOMEN.
http://www.more.com/2027/9521-president-obama-should-play-basketball
Thanks Lavi
We apprecate your background information and perspective on this battle.
Congradulations on your efforts paying off.
tweet tweet @gracemoon
HIV Travel Ban - Victory for Grass Roots, Persistence Wins
We should also thank those who made HIV repeal a priority for our organization, Immigration Equality, in February 1993 when we first founded it. Our mission then was to fight for binational couples, to ensure the availability of asylum for those persecuted, and to seek fairness for HIV+ immigrants. Almost from the first meetings we began to discuss ways in which we could illustrate the harm against our families caused by the HIV ban (waivers for those with US spouses compounded its effects against our community). As a fledgling organization we worked with Latino Commission on AIDS, HIV Law Project, Lambda Legal Defense and GMHC in the early 1990s and learned a lot about HIV advocacy and coalition building. Those brave folks who joined us in early days of 1993, who helped start this organization with bake sales and $10 donations, and who saw this fight through 16 years deserve our admiration and gratitude today. Many along the way tired of the fight and after contributing to the maximum of their endurance passed the torch. Many others felt it was a losing battle that could never be won and that all resources should be directed elsewhere. They were wrong. Persistence has paid off. “The arc of history bends toward justice,” said Martin Luther King, Jr., famously. For those who think 16 years of fighting in the trenches is too long to win and protect our civil rights, I urge you to look at the repeal of this ban and how it will forever change lives. For those who have joined our struggle recently, it is appropriate to consider the context, the road that got us here: literally hundreds of meetings, protests, strategy sessions, newspaper articles and conferences, the countless of hours of public education by non-citizens with HIV/AIDS who were unfairly excluded from this country by the policy. That is how we got here. We stand on the shoulders of others when we celebrate victory. We must keep the fight up for UAFA and our inclusion in Comprehensive Immigration Reform and not be put off that these struggles take years. Still, every one of us has a right to celebrate this moment, whether we were skeptics or lifers.
The announcement will be made during the signing of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act in the Diplomatic Reception Room of the White House at 11:50 a.m. Eastern Time. It will be the President’s only public event today. See our law firm blog:
http://www.masliah-soloway.com/blogs/2009/10/president-obama-expected-to-announce.html