Closer to Lifting the HIV Travel Ban

On August 17, Lambda Legal submitted comments to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, supporting the CDC's proposed rules that would lift the HIV travel and immigration ban by removing HIV from the list of communicable diseases of public health significance for visitors and immigrants to the United States.

The letter describes how the discriminatory restrictions violate basic human rights and cannot be justified on public health grounds, and stresses that lifting the ban will reduce the stigma faced by people living with HIV.

The CDC's July, 2009 proposal to change the regulations came almost a year after Lambda Legal sent a letter to former President Bush urging him to end the ban on visitors and immigrants living with HIV. Now, after over twenty years of barring people living with HIV from traveling or immigrating to the United States, the federal government is one step closer to getting this baseless, discriminatory rule off the books.

Lambda Legal HIV Project Staff Attorney Scott Schoettes comments: "Once these rules are finalized, U.S. policy will reflect the broad consensus among the scientific, medical and public health communities that admission of individuals living with HIV into the United States does not present a threat to the public health of this country nor does it pose any danger to its citizens. Adoption of these rules…will ensure that people living with HIV no longer face this type of stigma and discrimination from our government."

View the full text of Lambda Legal's letter.