Legal Seminar to Help Aliens With HIV Virus
The Downtown Legalization Project in Los Angeles is conducting a training seminar for attorneys and immigration advisers on how to prepare an HIV waiver, which is needed by some immigrants to become U.S residents under the Immigration and Naturalization Service’s Amnesty Program.
The waiver is a 30- to 50-page document in which applicants who have tested positive for the human immunodeficiency virus may explain why they should not be denied legal status. HIV causes AIDS.
The Immigration Reform and Control Act states that amnesty applicants testing positive for specific infectious diseases--including AIDS--are subject to automatic denial, INS officials said.
Individuals who test positive for HIV have been exposed to AIDS but may not have contracted the disease.
J. Craig Fong, an attorney at the Legalization Project, said the waiver allows those who test positive to have their cases reviewed further, rather than automatically denied.
Approximately 10%, or 30,000, amnesty applicants are likely to test positive for the virus, a Legalization Project spokesman said.
The training session will be held from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at the office of public counsel, 3535 W. 6th St. For information call 747-4097.
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