Housing Works: Housing Prevents AIDS. Housing Improves Health.

Last month, the Obama administration moved toward lifting the U.S. travel and immigration ban, and if all goes according to plan, this discriminatory policy will soon be as dead as the man who championed it.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention needs to hear your comments on the proposal to lift the ban by August 17 (see below). And on August 16, it’s the International Day of Action to Lift the U.S. HIV Travel Ban. If you’re any where near Toronto/Buffalo or Surrey, British Columbia, you can rally in support of the ban’s last gasp!

At the rallies in Surrey and Fort Erie (near Toronto), Ontario, HIV-positive Americans will walk over the border to Canada. They will of course have to leave their Canadian brothers and sisters behind, thanks to the discriminatory ban.

Martin Rooney, who is spearheading the action in Surrey, became passionately committed to ending the travel ban when he was stopped at the border entering the United States from Canada in November 2007 and was questioned about his HIV status. Rooney was told that, despite violating the law ban on HIV-positive travelers, he could enter the country by paying for a $130 waiver. Rooney objected on principle.

“Either I’m a threat to the U.S. or I’m not, and $130 shouldn’t change that,” Rooney said. Rooney said he looks forward to visiting the United States once again to continue charity work at an organization, the AIDS Tijuana Fund. He hopes that having the rally the day before the public comment period ends will remind people to take action.

“I view this rally as an opportunity to educate Americans and Canadians about the existence of the ban, and for the U.S. to move through this process quickly,” Rooney said.

For more information about the Surrey rally, contact Rooney at rally@martinstorm.com. For more information on the Niagara rally contact Doulton Wiltshire at dwiltshire@aidsniagara.com

Comment away

If you can’t make it up to the border, show your support by submitting a comment in favor of the proposed ban fix. Check out other comments, on the CDC website, including calls to lift the ban by the EU HIV/AIDS Civil Society Forum, the World Federation of Hemophilia, National Association of People With AIDS, Immigration Equality, Gay Men’s Health Crisis and hundreds of other international organizations and concerned individuals.

If you have writer’s block, the National AIDS Housing Coalition (NAHC) submitted a comment that you are encouraged to pull from (in fact, duplicate comments are encouraged because it speeds up the feds’ review time). NAHC became deeply involved with the call to lift the travel ban after 60 Canadians were barred from coming to Washington, D.C. to attend the North American Housing and HIV/AIDS Research Summit.

Some of the important points to highlight in your commentary:

• There is no scientific or public health justification for the ban.

• Restrictions based on entry, stay and residence based on HIV status are discriminatory.

• Restrictions based on entry, stay and residence based on HIV status, can, and do violate human rights.

• Restrictions based on entry, stay and residence based on HIV status can impede effective responses to HIV.

• The cost to the American taxpayers will be much less than the CDC/HHS regulation suggests.

Submit comments electronically via the Internet to http://regulations.gov or via email to Part34HIVcomments@cdc.gov