In President Barack Obama’s opening year in office, he removed a ban on hiv-positive foreigners entering the country. At the end of March of his final year in office, he will remove the entry ban on three more sexually transmitted diseases (stds).

According to the Department of Health and Human Services (hhs), the number of inadmissible communicable diseases barring entry to the United States will drop to four: syphilis, gonorrhea, tuberculosis and leprosy. Three stds chancroid, granuloma inguinale and lymphogranuloma venereum will no longer be considered “diseases of public health significance.”

In 1993, the United States Senate added a clause to the Immigration and Nationality Act that was designed to reduce the spread of hiv/aids. It included the following:

Any alien who is determined (in accordance with regulations prescribed by the Secretary of Health and Human Services) to have a communicable disease of public health significance, which shall include infection with the etiologic agent for acquired immune deficiency syndrome [aids] … is inadmissible.

In 2008, then President George W. Bush signed a law, which made it the responsibility of the hhs to determine whether or not a disease should be considered “a communicable disease of public health significance.” In 2009, despite the original clause being clear about hiv, it was dropped from the list.

At that time, the U.S. had the highest prevalence of hiv infection of any developed country.

Despite the Center for Disease Control and Prevention describing last year as “the year of outbreaks and increases in reported stds,” the administration is opening the border for more.

The hhs calculated in 2009 that the cost of additional health care from “onward transmission” of hiv would be between $86 to $513 million. For the most recent change, President Obama’s hhs secretary ran the numbers again. The verdict: “Not economically significant,” since it won’t be above $100 million per year.

Jon Feere, a legal policy analyst from the Center for Immigration Studies, heavily opposes the changes. He wrote:

The administration argues that this change is beneficial because physicians who would otherwise be administering the exams “will be able to devote more time and training to other, more common and/or more serious health issues.” Sound familiar? This is the same argument the Obama administration makes for directing ice [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] to only focus on deporting “the worst of the worst” criminal aliens. By ignoring the run-of-the-mill illegal aliens, law enforcement can better focus on the most egregious offenders, they claim. But it means that plenty of dangerous aliens get a pass and it means that violence has largely become a prerequisite for immigration enforcement.

Feere says the decision backs up what he has long been arguing: Immigration is the defining issue for many politicians today. Never mind the consequences, as Feere explains, “increased immigration trumps all other concerns.”

Listen to Trumpet Daily Radio Show host Stephen Flurry discuss immigration enforcement (starting at 06:30):