HIV is another area of immigration law that has elicited some recent attention.

Recently, Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., introduced a bill that would repeal the 1993 ban on granting permanent status to HIV-positive immigrants. Since 1993, while HIV-positive people can seek a family or humanitarian waiver to the ban, the vast majority of individuals who test positive for HIV are denied immigration to the U.S. In fact, in general, people with HIV are barred both from entering the U.S. and receiving a green card.

Lee’s bill seeks to repeal that ban on HIV, which categorizes HIV along with tuberculosis and a handful of other diseases that enable officials to exclude potential immigrants or deport non-citizens who are already living in the U.S. Although testing HIV positive will not cause immigrants to lose existing status, changing classifications or status has been grounds for removal proceedings.

This has an impact not only on U.S. immigrants but on those who come in contact with them. Because HIV-positive people living in the U.S. fear removal or deportation, they are far less willing to get tested or seek treatment. As a result, an untold number of HIV-positive individuals are either going untreated or seeking an “underground” health care and support system.

A recent study at La Clinica del Pueblo in Washington, D.C., showed that nearly 70 percent of patients diagnosed with AIDS arrived at near-death stages of the diseases. Doctors indicated that with proper treatment the vast majority of these patients would never have reached such critical points.

Opponents of Lee’s bill site the rise in health care cost burdens on taxpayers, while supporters argue that by seeking treatment early, fewer Americans become unknowingly infected, and the cost for treating HIV is much lower in its earlier stages.

Victoria Arellano was a Mexican immigrant to the U.S. who died this past July in the custody of immigration officials in San Pedro. The cause of death was attributed to a lack of provisional medical care for her HIV. Arellano, who had originally come to the U.S. as a child, self-identified as a transgender woman. She was detained at San Pedro after being detected entering the U.S. illegally for the second time. During the time she was detained, she was denied access to her HIV medication.

Just three years prior to her death, Arellano had been diagnosed as asymptomatic. On July 13, immigration officials took her to the infirmary and prescribed nothing more than amoxicillin. Her condition deteriorated as the result of a lack of proper medical care. The other 80 detainees at San Pedro began a “vigil chant” of “hospital,” and a peaceful protest of refusing to get in line for the night’s head count followed.

Eventually, when she was too weak to move or eat on her own, officials moved Arellano to an intensive care unit. They handcuffed her to the bed, and two immigration agents guarded her door. Following her death on July 20, the other detainees sent Arellano’s mother $245.

Human Rights Watch, among other organizations, is calling for an investigation into the case. Arellano’s case is just one of thousands of cases of neglect and abuse at the hands of immigration officials and facilities.