An immigration activist is questioning the White House decision to give foreign nationals with HIV/AIDS a special waiver to obtain short-term visas to enter the country.
At a recent White House press briefing, Press Secretary Dana Perino was asked if President Bush agrees with a call by Senators John Kerry (D-Massachusetts) and Gordon Smith (R-Oregon) for the lifting of a ban on immigration into the U.S. for those who have HIV or AIDS. Perino said the president has directed the Secretary of State to request that the Secretary of Homeland Security initiate a rulemaking to propose a categorical waiver for HIV-positive people seeking to enter the United States on short-term visas, which will provide a more streamlined process. William Gheen, president of Americans for Legal Immigration PAC (ALIPAC), takes issue with the move. "Whether you feel that people with HIV should or should not be allowed into the country for treatment or short-term visas – regardless of how you feel about that – that should be debated by the American public [and] debated in Congress. And Congress should set that policy. Bush is playing king again," Gheen explains. He says easing restrictions on AIDS visas will open the floodgates for those individuals to come to the U.S. "It says that the president is ordering a short-term visa – a blanket waiver – which means that people who might have been looking to immigrate to the United States can now actually use the HIV-positive status to obtain a short-term visa," Gheen contends. The president, according to Gheen, overstepped his authority in issuing this directive. Gheen believes granting short-term visas, even for people with infectious diseases like AIDS, would be more tolerable if Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were doing anywhere close to their job of deporting those who overstay their visas.
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