The ban on HIV-positive people entering the US officially ends today. The 22-year-old law was one of the most restrictive immigration policies in the world for people with HIV but was lifted by President Barack Obama in November.
As the first Canadian TV personality to publicly acknowledge my HIV status and being active in HIV/AIDS awareness, I was never denied entry to the US while so many others were. I often wondered why? Perhaps my file was never red-flagged by US authorities. Perhaps it was profiling. Over the last two decades I crossed the border countless times with my medications for gay journalism conferences, holidays, baseball games, and work.
The ban was brought in by Ronald Reagan, the President who never let the word AIDS cross his lips. Liberal and Conservative governments never made it a bi-lateral human rights issue because the US and Canada seem blind to such abuses existing in our friendship of democracy. They do (i.e. Marc Emery).
The fact that a ban on travel to the US has been lifted - symbolic, in part, to host to 2012 International AIDS Conference - pales against Prime Minister Stephen Harper's cold-shoulder in not attending the XVI International AIDS Conference in Toronto*, his government's court case against Vancouver's Insite and inability to talk thoughtfully about HIV/AIDS in Canada today: on the streets of the Downtown Eastside, in aboriginal communities and to gay youth.
Now, when asked if we have anything to declare when entering the US, every HIV-positive Canadian should loudly declare, "YES! I have HIV!"
* Just before the 11th conference in Vancouver (1996) Jean Chretien announced he had an important fishing vacation that would prevent him from opening the conference.
Just wondering in the case of ban being lifted..you still have to declare it?
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