Feeds: 
symbol identifies content for paid subscribers only.
Death to the Widow Penalty.
The past few months have been none too kind to the issue of immigration. Any lingering hopes that the White House would prioritize comprehensive reform this year were dashed when Obama stated that he didn't anticipate a bill passing before 2010. Repair of the country's broken detention system got that much more complicated with the resignation of Dora Schriro, the Homeland Security special adviser tasked with its overhaul. Not to mention that the health-care fight pretty much poisoned discussion of immigration.
So, some good news! The widow penalty looks like it's done for. Using a recent example, the penalty works like this: A Thai woman with two children marries an American. The couple files naturalization green card paperwork. Her spouse dies before the paperwork is processed, eight months into the marriage. On top of suffering this huge loss, the woman and her children are now threatened with deportation, since they are no longer considered to be family in the eyes of Citizenship and Immigration Services.
This summer, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano called for a temporary suspension of the penalty, and an amendment that would solve the problem permanently was attached to the Homeland Security appropriations bill. This week a slew of cases in Maryland, Florida, Texas, and Missouri that involve spouses presently targeted by the penalty have determined that the immigrant spouses and stepchildren of deceased citizens still qualify as surviving relatives and that USCIS' reading of the current law is wrong.
The ending is certainly a happy one for all of the plaintiffs involved, but the fact that something as uncontroversial as giving a widow a green card -- that she was due to receive anyway! -- was policy for so long highlights how in need of reform our current immigration system is.
--Alexandra Gutierrez
COMMENTS (8)
Trying to push Immigration reform now is not politically possible. Try selling a guest worker program right now, see how well that works out for you.
Posted by: soullite | September 30, 2009 9:59 AM
"The couple files naturalization paperwork." This is nitpicking, but naturalization is different from obtaining a green card. Naturalization is the process of gaining citizenship, and I think foreign nationals can not apply for naturalization until they've been green card holders, living in the US, for a certain period of time (5 years or something like that).
But this is good news, in any case, because here are individuals who have followed the laws and are merely victims of slow bureaucracy. They shouldn't be tossed out of the country because it takes 12-18 months or whatever for ICE to approve their cases.
Posted by: logorrhea | September 30, 2009 1:03 PM
This doesn't just involve stepchildren, it also involves natural children -- foreign national marries American, they file for green card for foreign spouse, they have baby, American spouse dies, UCIS tries to throw surviving spouse out of the country, and they get to choose whether they leave with or without their American baby, who is entitled to stay. How nice!
Posted by: rebmarks | September 30, 2009 1:25 PM
logorrhea,
yes, that's correct - it's 5 years.
Getting a green card makes you a "permanent resident" and you have to hold that status for 5 years to be eligible to apply for naturalization. The permanent residency process itself takes an unbelievable amount of time and involves applications to multiple different government agencies, who don't talk to each other and have no idea how each other's processes actually work. It took me 7 years, most of which was waiting for whatever agency needed to approve paperwork to get to it. I think it's improved quite a bit since then, though.
Posted by: Brain Hertz (green card holder since 2007) | September 30, 2009 1:46 PM
logorrhea, Brain Hertz:
Note that the rules for naturalization are different for spouses than for other immigrants. For most cases (like mine) it is 5 years, but it is quicker for spouses. I think it is usually 3 years.
Posted by: TS | September 30, 2009 3:17 PM
Those immigration rules do not include gay spouses married in the states that recognize same-sex marriage.
Posted by: sheiler | September 30, 2009 5:47 PM
The other thing about the "widow penalty" is that it's rife for arbitrary classist and racist enforcement, since it can be waived whenever the immigration people want to. (Hence the notorious NY Post headline "US Will Not Order Danish to Go".)
Posted by: paul | September 30, 2009 7:46 PM
The "Widow Penalty" has nothing to do with the five year waiting period for applying for naturalization.
A person who enters the US on a k-3 spousal visa applies for and usually receives a two-year conditional residency visa. The condition is the person stays married to their US citizen spouse for that duration. At the end of the two year period, the couple must appear in person at the immigration center. They are interviewed separately and together by an immigration officer to prove that they were married and living together the entire time. IF they convince an immigration officer that they were, the person receives a permanent residency visa.
This was implemented in the mid-1980s to combat the growing problem of marriage fraud to gain US residency. The widow's penalty is not something new; it's been a problem for over 20 years. It just became worse since Bush and 9/11, when the USCIS/Republicans became hysterical over immigration.
Posted by: RonCharest | October 1, 2009 11:44 AM