Washington Blade - March 19, 2008
Lou Chibbaro Jr.

A bipartisan group of senators backing efforts to eliminate the HIV ban added language securing its repeal to a sweeping and highly popular bill that would reauthorize the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, known as PEPFAR.

The PEPFAR bill, which the Foreign Relations Panel passed March 13, would provide up to $50 billion for AIDS-related medical care and prevention programs in developing countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean.

Human rights groups and public health advocates have joined gay and AIDS advocacy organizations in calling for repeal of the HIV visitor and immigrant ban, saying it was a holdover from the time when the means of HIV transmission was less understood, creating what AIDS activists said were unfounded fears.

"The United States has enforced this antiquated policy for too long with no public health rationale for discriminating against HIV-positive people in such a severe manner," said Victoria Neilson, director of the New York group Immigration Equality.

Human Rights Campaign, a national gay advocacy group, called on the full Senate to approve the PEPFAR bill with the repeal of the HIV visitor and immigrant ban intact.

"We appreciate the support by the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations and now urge the full Senate to repeal this unjust and sweeping policy that deems HIV-positive individuals inadmissible to the United States," said Joe Solmonese, HRC president. "This Draconian policy must end."

Members of the Foreign Relations Committee approved 13 amendments to the PEPFAR bill, calling for technical and policy changes in the bill's provisions dealing with HIV treatment and prevention. There were no attempts to remove the provision repealing the HIV visitor and immigration ban.

Sens. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and Richard Lugar (R-Ind.) introduced the bill, and Sens. John Sununu (R-N.H.) and Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) signed on as co-sponsors. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.) and Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) initiated efforts to attach the repeal of the HIV travelers and immigrant ban to the PEPFAR bill.

The PEPFAR measure was expected to reach the Senate floor for a vote sometime after Congress returns from its Easter holiday recess on March 30.

The House passed a version of the PEPFAR bill last month that does not include the HIV repeal provision. House supporters of the repeal, led by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), said they would push for the House acceptance of the Senate version.

The White House has indicated that President Bush supports the Senate version of the bill as part of a compromise over various PEPFAR related policy issues that Republican and Democratic senators worked out through negotiations during the past several weeks.

Using the global AIDS reauthorization bill as a vehicle for repealing the HIV immigrant and visitors ban dramatically improves chances for passing the repeal because the global AIDS measure enjoys widespread support and is expected to clear the House and Senate.

Earlier proposals to repeal the HIV immigrant and visitors ban have died in committee and gay-supportive members of Congress have said a freestanding repeal measure would be far more difficult to pass.

But opposition to parts of the global AIDS relief bill unrelated to the clause repealing the HIV immigrant and visitors ban surfaced last week, prompting Biden to postpone a mark-up hearing for the bill in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Biden chairs the committee.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and several other GOP senators expressed strong opposition to a provision in the bill that removes a requirement under the current global AIDS relief program that at least 55 percent of the funds be spent on treatment, including the dispensing of life-saving anti-retroviral AIDS drugs.

The clause in the bill repealing the controversial 1993 law banning foreign visitors and immigrants with HIV was not mentioned in press releases and statements announcing the global AIDS bill, dubbed the "Tom Lantos and Henry J. Hyde United States Global Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria Reauthorization Act of 2008."

Capitol Hill sources said the provision calling for repealing the HIV immigration and visitors ban could have become controversial if opponents portrayed it as a significant change to U.S. immigration policies at a time when observers have described the climate for immigration reform as "poisonous."

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