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Story Updated : January 04, 2010 10:45:00 PM

First HIV+ Man Set to Legally Visit U.S.


BAUSCH CLEMONS X390 (COURTESY) | ADVOCATE.COM

Clemons Ruland may become the first known HIV-positive person to legally visit the United States after he filed papers with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Monday, the day the HIV travel and immigration ban was officially lifted after 22 years of barring HIV-positive people from entering the U.S.

Ruland (pictured right), a Dutchman who will travel with his HIV-negative partner, Hugo Bausch, from the Netherlands, is scheduled to land Thursday at New York’s JFK International Airport. According to the Netherlands-based NGO AIDS Fonds, which is sponsoring Ruland’s travel to the U.S. after he won an essay contest, Ruland and Bausch simply plan to spend a week touring New York, shopping, and visiting friends.

Paul Zantkuijl of AIDS Fonds said his organization has been working alongside others to change the policy for years and wanted to celebrate their success by sending an HIV-positive person to the states.

“We all had to be patient, but finally this discriminatory and stigmatizing ruling has ended!” he said.

President Barack Obama announced in late October that the Department of Health and Human Services would be eliminating all travel restrictions tied to a person's HIV status starting in 2010. The ban, first implemented in 1987 and codified into law by Congress in 1993, prevented non-U.S. citizens who were HIV-positive from traveling or immigrating to the United States without an official waiver. President George W. Bush signed the policy reversal into law in the summer of 2008, but his administration was unable to finalize the change before his term ended.

Ruland, now 45, was diagnosed with HIV in 1997 after being infected by an ex-lover in New York. He has been on an antiretroviral regimen since and the virus remains undetectable.

On the following page is the poem Ruland wrote as part of his entry in the contest to win a trip to the U.S.

* This story has been updated from its original form.

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Reader Comments
  • Name: Hallie
    Date posted: 4/28/2011 11:06:46 AM
    Hometown: ANjAweFyKroPyz

    Comment:

    I'm impressed! You've managed the almost impssoilbe.

  • Name: Cornelia
    Date posted: 4/28/2011 11:06:46 AM
    Hometown: PPWwKyjlQVYsWNTZo

    Comment:

    Suonds great to me BWTHDIK

  • Name: Michael
    Date posted: 1/6/2010 12:45:40 PM
    Hometown: Wilton Manors, FL

    Comment:

    Rich, Wrong. While you are current in what you wrote, the Bush administration could not get it done in time. Like I said, the Bush Administration had 8 full years to get it done and they didn't - for whatever reason. If Bush could have gotten it done, he would have. It took Obama only a few months to accomplish and finish what Bush started. So we are looking at semantics here. I find it ironic that the Bush administration didn't have time to finish this in 8 years, yet they were able to start and wage an immoral war, based solely on lies, in Iraq.

  • Name: Tony Myers
    Date posted: 1/5/2010 1:51:05 PM
    Hometown: NYC

    Comment:

    ResopnseMr. Patrick Dennison, What guarantees do we have about your "behavior"? Vilifying and categorizing people based on fear. The same kind of fear that creates a visceral and unthoughtout panic against women, gays, blacks, asians, etc. ad nauseum. Also, what business is it of yours, mine or anyone else's how someone defines his sexuality and what acts he or she may engage in, in the privacy of their own spaces.

  • Name: Rich
    Date posted: 1/5/2010 11:42:29 AM
    Hometown: Greenwich, NY

    Comment:

    @Michael---Wrong. The legislation to lift the ban was passed during the Bush administration. It just took this long for the agencies to write the new regulations, get them approved and implemented. Obama had nothing to do with it. The next important move is to allow gay and lesbian Americans to sponsor their loved ones for immigration in the same manner as do the heteros. Right now there is no legal way to sponsor them. Please support the UAFA (h.R 1024/S. 424) which will end this discrimination.

  • Name: Emma Goldman
    Date posted: 1/5/2010 10:47:26 AM
    Hometown: Chicago

    Comment:

    This is great. I am glad Obama has done one good thing this past year.

  • Name: Michael
    Date posted: 1/4/2010 6:14:06 PM
    Hometown: Wilton Manors, FL

    Comment:

    Good for him and all the other visitors. This NEVER would have happened with a republican in the White House. George W. Bush had 8 years to lift this travel ban and he did not. It only took Obama a matter of months to lift the ban.



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