Sara Perle and Samara Fox [Acting Communications Director and Intern, International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission]: "The 22-year-old HIV/AIDS ban on the entry into the United States of HIV-positive individuals who are not US citizens ended on January 4, 2010 when the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009 came into effect. This act states that: a) HIV infection is no longer included on the list of "communicable diseases of public health significance;" b) Testing for HIV infection is no longer required as part of the US immigration medical screening process; and c) HIV infection no longer requires a waiver for entry into the United States. The prior regulation that maintained the ban was written in 1987 – when HIV was poorly understood.

The lifting of the ban has an immediate and positive impact on the lives of HIV positive individuals, their friends, family, and activist communities. The ban unfairly set people with HIV apart from those with other diseases and disabilities, despite the fact that HIV is not transmitted casually. It played into hostility and hatred toward persons with HIV and was used to target marginalized groups of people for exclusion, including men who have sex with men (MSM). Rather than promoting the human rights of people in need of protection, it promoted social stigma and isolation for people who are HIV positive both within and outside the United States. This discrimination decreased the accessibility and availability of HIV education and treatment, increasing the risk to people with HIV/AIDS and to global public health.

The ban created a strong incentive for HIV positive visitors to the US to lie about their HIV status or to avoid travel to the US altogether. While the possibility of receiving a waiver to the ban existed in principle, in practice the bureaucracy involved in obtaining a waiver stood as a significant deterrent, and waivers were not always granted. The result was that HIV positive individuals were often unable visit loved ones, seek emergency medical treatment or attend and speak at international conferences and meetings. In addition, those individuals that concealed their HIV positive status could still be subjected to testing by the US Immigration and Naturalization Agency (INA) if suspected of infection. Because travelers with HIV/AIDS medications found on their person were tested, some HIV positive individuals traveled without their medications, which weakened their body's ability to fight infection and increased HIV-resistance once the medication was resumed.

Now that the ban has been lifted, HIV positive individuals need not fear exclusion from the US merely for traveling with their life-saving medications. The lifting of the ban also has a direct impact on the work of many lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT ) activists, facilitating their attendance at HIV/AIDS and LGBT conferences and meetings that take place in the US. And of course, the lifting of the ban will make it possible for many more individuals to visit loved ones living in the United States and to seek temporary specialized medical treatment related to HIV/AIDS and other medical conditions.

The HIV/AIDS entry ban violated international human rights law under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). In restricting the movement of individuals solely because of their HIV status, the ban violated the right to freedom of movement (ICCPR Art 12, UDHR Art 13) and in requiring testing and disclosure of HIV status to public authorities, the ban violated the right to privacy (ICCPR Art 17). The ban also intensified HIV/AIDS stigma to the point that it violated the right of HIV positive persons to access education, information and health care (UDHR Art 26(2)) and because the HIV travel ban did not actually address a public health emergency, its exclusion of HIV positive individuals was without reasonable justification and violated the right to freedom from discrimination (ICCPR Art 2 (1)).

In addition, Article 42 of the International Health Regulations [PDF file], a binding instrument of international law to which the United States is a party, requires that "[h]ealth measures taken pursuant to these Regulations shall be…applied in a transparent and non-discriminatory manner." Moreover, according to the International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights [PDF file], exclusion based on HIV status infringes on basic human rights because:

"[t]here is no public health rationale for restricting liberty of movement or choice of residence on the grounds of HIV status….[A]ny restrictions on those rights based on suspected or real HIV-status alone, including HIV screening of international travelers, are discriminatory and cannot be justified by public health concerns."

On January 1, 2010, South Korea also loosened its travel restrictions for HIV positive foreigners, though some experts maintain that compulsory testing of foreign residents is continuing regardless. Other countries that still have restrictions on entry, residence and length of stay for HIV positive individuals include China, Cuba, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, New Zealand, North Korea, Poland, Russia and Singapore."