Good Advice

Infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS should not be the basis for denying residency to immigrants, the California Department of Health Services has advised the Immigration and Naturalization Service. It is good advice.

“Please be advised that we believe denying a person legal residency solely on the grounds of HIV seropositivity is counterproductive and poor public health policy for this disease,” Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer, director of the department, informed the INS, according to correspondence just made public.

In response, Richard E. Norton, associate INS commissioner, promised careful use of the service’s discretionary authority to grant waivers and said only two cases are pending. But more cases could develop as the process of screening immigration amnesty candidates continues.

Kizer opposed the exclusion on grounds of both public health and equity. From the public-health-policy point of view, it is important that these people have “access to programs that provide education, behavioral intervention and medical monitoring” to minimize the risk of further spread of the infection by them, including the enhanced risk if they are forced underground.

From the equity point of view, Kizer pointed out that amnesty applicants have been in the United States at least six years and therefore “it is likely that they contracted the virus while in the United States.” He concluded that “it would be inhumane to deny these individuals legalization benefits, force them to resume an illegal underground existence, or constructively force them to leave this country at a time when they most need proper medical guidance and assistance.” Their return to Third World nations of origin “is likely to worsen the worldwide HIV epidemic and, in the long run, hurt the U.S. more than tending to these individuals in this country now.”