Lambda Legal and the HIV Law Project have filed a friend-of-the-court brief asking the Bureau of Immigration Appeals to overturn a ruling by one of its judges ordering the deportation of an HIV-positive immigrant, according to a Lambda Legal statement. Jose Luis Ramirez, a gay immigrant from Mexico, was charged with solicitation after agreeing to perform oral sex on an undercover police officer in exchange for money. The Department of Homeland Security sought to terminate his withholding of removal, which he received in 2006 because of repeated abuse by police officers in his native country. The judge terminated the withholding of removal despite an admission by the police officer that Ramirez had agreed to use condoms and an assertion by Ramirez he was going to disclose his HIV-positive status before sex. The judge alleged that having HIV elevated the solicitation conviction to the level of a “particularly serious crime.”

To read the statement, click here.