World

Obama Lifts HIV/AIDS Travel Ban, Video

by Sudha Krishna | October 30, 2009 at 10:44 am

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After a 22 year ban, people with HIV/AIDS will be allowed into the USA, effective Monday.

President Barack Obama made the annoucment during a ceremony to extend the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Act.

"We lead the world when it comes to helping stem the AIDS pandemic -- yet we are one of only a dozen countries that still bar people from HIV from entering our own country," he said.

"If we want to be the global leader in combating HIV/AIDS, we need to act like it," he said.

The ban came into effect in 1987 but received the Congressional stamp of approval in 1993. It prevented non-US citzens with HIV/AIDS from travelling or immigrating to the USA - unless cleared by Homeland Security

The executive director of teh LGBT lobby grop Immigration equality says the lifting of the ban was long overdue.

“At long last, people living with HIV will no longer be pointlessly barred from this country,” Tiven said. "Every day, Immigration Equality hears from individuals and families who have been separated because of the ban, with no benefit to the public health. Now those families can be reunited."