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1. U.S. HIV travel ban lifted
2. Program to entice entrepreneurs
3. Census checks Native Americans
4. Lieberman calls for leadership
5. House bill offers benefits

1.
Rights groups laud end of US HIV/AIDS travel ban
Agence France Presse, January 4, 2010

Washington, DC (AFP) -- Human rights groups on Monday praised the official lifting of a decades-old ban that prevented people with HIV/AIDS from travelling to the United States.

President Barack Obama announced in October that his administration would end the ban, and the legislation lifting the travel restrictions came into effect on Monday.

"We're very excited to finally see the end of this discriminatory and harmful policy," said Victoria Neilson, legal director at the advocacy group Immigration Equality.

"Getting rid of the HIV ban has been part of our core mission since we were founded in 1994," she told AFP.

The ban on HIV-positive foreigners entering the United States had been in place since 1987.

While people living with the virus could receive 30-day waivers to visit the United States, the ban made it nearly impossible for HIV-positive individuals to study or work at US institutions.

The Human Rights Campaign, which advocates for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights, also hailed the end of the ban.

"Today, a sad chapter in our nation's response to people with HIV and AIDS has finally come to a close and we are a better nation for it," said HRC President Joe Solmonese.

"This policy, in place for more than two decades, was unnecessary, ineffective and lacked any public health justification," he added in a statement.

The United Nations issued a statement congratulating both the United States and South Korea, which lifted its own restrictions on visitors with HIV/AIDS on January 1.

UNAIDS Executive Director Michel Sidibe said the repeals were "a victory for human rights on two sides of the globe."

"Let no country obstruct someone because of their HIV status. Such discrimination has no place in today's highly mobile society," he added.

Ending the US travel ban had been an uphill struggle for rights groups, who saw former president Bill Clinton's attempts to repeal the restrictions shot down by conservatives.
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http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hMcVRNxuH5BlryH0URDyu...

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2.
New visa proposal to help create the next big thing
By Maggie Shiels
The BBC News (U.K.), December 31, 2009

Silicon Valley, CA -- A proposal that will make it easier for foreign entrepreneurs in the US to start the next Google or Yahoo will be debated in the new year.

Congressman Jared Polis has proposed a start-up visa to entice "foreigners with good ideas" to stay in the US.

The issue has been gathering steam in Silicon Valley where half of all tech company founders are immigrants, according to Duke University research.

The idea is part of a proposed overhaul of the US immigration system.

"Every day the American economy is losing ground - not to mention high-tech jobs and technologies - to India and China because foreign-born entrepreneurs cannot secure a visa to stay in the US," he said.

Lost opportunity

Eric Diep, who has just turned 22, could be regarded as one entrepreneur who got away.

He came to Silicon Valley as a student like many immigrant founders who have helped start companies such as Google and PayPal.

Mr Diep was one of the first developers to get into social games with his application called Quizzes, initially launched on the social networking site Facebook.

Over a year ago he started to apply for a visa to allow him to carry on working in the Valley, but he soon encountered problems.

"The reason it was so difficult for me was because I dropped out of university and the stipulation for a lot of visas is undergraduate experience. My age also seemed to be an issue for the attorneys

"At the beginning it wasn't the expense in terms of legal fees but the big problem soon became one of distraction. I was trying to spend as much time working on perfecting my product but then I would have to go away and figure out the legalities of applying for the visa," Mr Diep told BBC News.

In the end, Mr Diep decided to base himself in his native Canada and travel back and forth to Silicon Valley.

"The flying is so tiring between the two places and it's expensive. At one point, I had no money left in my bank account but at the last minute money came in and now I feel pretty fortunate that I can still do this.

"It was a pretty close call," he added.

He backs a start-up visa because, for him, being in Silicon Valley is where he needs to be.

"Being there at the time really launched me. I would never have spotted the social gaming opportunity had I not been there."
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8417510.stm

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3.
Indigenous Immigrants to Be Counted in 2010 Census
The Associated Press, January 4, 2010

Madera, CA (AP) -- For most people, describing themselves on the U.S. Census form will be as easy as checking a box: White. Black. American Indian.

But it's not so simple for indigenous immigrants -- the Native Americans of Mexico and Central America. They often need more than one box because their ancestry can cover multiple Census categories, and they must also overcome a significant language barrier and a mistrust of government.

The Census Bureau wants to change that in the 2010 count as it tallies immigrant indigenous groups for the first time ever, hoping to get a more complete snapshot of a growing segment of the immigrant population.

In the 2010 Census, the bureau will tabulate handwritten entries specifying that the respondent belongs to a Central American indigenous group such Maya, Nahua, Mixtec, or Purepecha. The list of different populations that end up being counted will be made public when results are released in 2011, said Michele Lowe, spokeswoman for the Census Bureau.

''We're always striving to present an accurate portrait of the American people, and this is part of that effort,'' said Lowe.

An accurate count is important to the indigenous groups themselves, and to the federal government, which allocates resources to state and local government according to the results.

The U.S. Department of Labor estimates indigenous migrants make up about 17 percent of the country's farm workers, and may represent up to 30 percent of California's farm worker population. Florida also has a large indigenous immigrant population.

Indigenous organizations are independently working within their own communities to dispel apprehension and encourage participation in the federal survey. They speak many different languages, making a single educational campaign impossible. Some speak Spanish; some not at all.

Many have encountered discrimination in their home countries because of their indigenous origin, and in this country for their immigrant status. All this makes them less likely to volunteer sensitive personal information to a government agency.

''In the past, many people wouldn't want to say they were indigenous,'' said Santos Miguel Tzunum Vasquez, from the Asociacion Esperanza Maya Quiche in Florida. ''Even I hid it sometimes.''

Vasquez's organization was founded to help the survivors of a 1997 massacre in a village in Guatemala called La Esperanza. Guatemala's 36-year civil war left tens of thousands of civilians dead, many of them indigenous civilians who were suspected of helping insurgents.
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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/01/04/us/AP-US-Census-Indigenous-Im...

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4.
Give Homeland Security role in U.S. visas: Senator
Reuters, January 3, 2010

Washington, DC (Reuters) -- The Homeland Security Department rather than the State Department should handle U.S. visas overseas to meet security threats, the chairman of the Senate homeland security committee said on Sunday.

Connecticut independent Joe Lieberman raised the idea during a discussion on ABCs "This Week" of the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound plane on Dec 25.

"I believe, incidentally, that we ought to take a look at taking the visa application and admission responsibility from the State Department. It doesn't really fit with foreign policy anymore," he said.

"And in an age of terrorism, I think the Department of Homeland Security ought to be handling visas abroad."

The 23-year-old Nigerian accused of the attempted bombing, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, held a multiple-entry U.S. visa issued in London, according to a statement by his family.

Leaders of the Senate committee say they will convene a hearing this month to examine airline security.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/03/AR201001...

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5.
House Health Care Bill Offers Insurance Help To Some Migrants From Pacific Islands
By Jenny Gold
Kaiser Health News with NPR, January 5, 2010

Springdale, AR -- Here in the self-described "Chicken Capitol of the World," an enclave of unlikely migrants - 6,000 people from the Marshall Islands - is watching the health care debate with heightened interest.

Under an accord negotiated two decades ago involving three Pacific Island nations, the Marshallese can travel and work freely in the U.S. But many have low-paying jobs and high numbers are uninsured.

Years ago, they were eligible for immediate coverage under Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the poor, but that benefit was revoked in 1996 as part of welfare reform. The result is they aren't eligible for Medicaid -- even after the five-year waiting period that applies to most other immigrants.

That's unfair, say advocates who argue that the Marshallese are contributing to the American economy by working and paying taxes and should have the same access to government programs as other legal immigrants. "It's like going to a party and you're bringing your potluck dish of rice and fried chicken and fried fish, but you're not eating anything," said Marshallese Consul General Carmen Chong.

Now, the health care legislation being debated in Congress might provide some relief. Under the House bill, a little-noticed provision sponsored by Rep. Neil Abercrombie, D-Hawaii, would restore the migrants' eligibility for immediate Medicaid coverage. The Senate bill doesn't have a similar provision.

Besides the Marshallese, the House provision also would apply to migrants from the Federated States of Micronesia and the Republic of Palau. The three strategically located archipelagos about 2,000 miles southwest of Hawaii, came under U.S. control following World War II as part of a United Nations-designated trust. The U.S. created military installations in the region and used several of the Marshall Islands as nuclear test sites.

The three nations received their independence in the 1980s and agreed to host U.S. military facilities. In exchange, their citizens are allowed to work in the United States without a visa.
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Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank in Washington that favors tighter immigration controls, says it's hard to argue that the Marshallese shouldn't have access to Medicaid. The burden, he says, is falling to federally funded clinics like the St. Francis House and to certain emergency rooms, masking the actual cost of treating the islanders. But he says Medicaid access isn't really the point.

"The bigger issue is should we be letting in people with little education from under-developed countries because there's no way to avoid the costs" of their health care, he says. The root of the problem, he explains, lies in using immigration as a bargaining chip with other countries, because "mass immigration is incompatible with a modern society."
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http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2010/January/05/marshall-islands...