HIV-Positive No Longer An Automatic Grounds of US Visa Denial

President Bush has signed a bill that eliminates the explicit reference in the US Immigration and Nationality Act to HIV-positive as a health condition requiring US visa denial.

HIV-positive had been specifically added to the section of the INA concerning health-related grounds of visa ineligibility in 1987, when concern about the world-wide AIDS epidemic was at its peak.  In recent years most individuals seeking entry to the U.S. as visitors who were merely HIV positive have routinely been granted a waiver of ineligibility but this had to be determined by the Attorney General due to the specific statutory listing of HIV positive as grounds for visa denial. 

While individual travellers who are HIV positive can still be denied entry to the United States on health related grounds, with the removal of the statutory reference to HIV positive, determination of admissibility of these individuals will revert to the Department of Health and Human Services, and they will no longer automatically be considered ineligible due to their having a “communicable disease of public health significance”.