CLINTON PLANS TO LIFT BAN ON IMMIGRANTS WITH HIV

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 10, 1993                   TAG: 9302100129
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: C-5   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium
CLINTON PLANS TO LIFT BAN ON IMMIGRANTS WITH HIV
President Clinton will lift immigration restrictions on foreigners infected with the AIDS virus, but the timing is uncertain, White House officials said Tuesday.
White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers said Clinton promised during the campaign to "lift the ban on travel and immigration for people with HIV, and he will do that. There's no particular timetable at this point."
Clinton shares the view of medical experts "that it's not a public threat," she said
The Department of Health and Human Services, for the third time in the past two years, has recommended removing AIDS from a list of contagious diseases that bar entry to this country, sources said.
But the Justice Department, which in the Bush administration supported the ban, has not yet taken a stand on the policy switch, officials said.
"The only other industrialized country in the world that has a ban is South Africa," said Myers. "It's something that is common, that people can travel and immigrate to countries when they are HIV positive."
George Stephanopoulos, the White House communications director, said HHS and the Justice Department are working on the policy. "We just have to make sure the executive order is right," he said.
Rep. Marge Roukema, R-N.J., sent Clinton a letter urging him to "rethink and reject this decision."
"Never in the history of immigration law have we knowingly admitted new sources of contagion. Our efforts should be concentrated on containing the spread of the epidemic, not on introducing new sources of infection," she said.
She warned that many HIV-positive immigrants "will end up as clients of our public assistance and health care systems."
Among those who might be helped by lifting the ban are 274 Haitian refugees still held in detention in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after they or a relative tested positive for the virus.
"It's long overdue," said Judy Rabinovitz, staff counsel with the ACLU Immigrants Rights Project in New York. "It's a wrong policy. It's been an embarrassment to the United States in the international health community."
"We're not talking about opening our doors to anybody with HIV," said Rabinovitz, who visited the Haitians in Cuba last week. "We're talking about spouses and children or people fleeing persecution who fear for their lives."
Harvard University canceled plans to hold the 1992 International Conference on AIDS in Boston because of the immigration restrictions.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB